Slackware Linux

Slackware Linux Essentials
Slackware Linux Essentials
Second Edition
Slackware Linux Essentials, Second Edition

Copyright 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005 Slackware Linux, Inc. All rights reserved. Printed in Canada. Published by Slackware Linux, Inc., 1164 Claremont Drive, Brentwood, CA 94513
Lead Author, Second Edition: Alan Hicks. Editors, Second Edition: Murray Stokely and FuKang Chen. Authors, First Edition: Chris Lumens, David Cantrell, and Logan Johnson. Print History:
June, 2000 May, 2005 First Edition Second Edition
Slackware Linux is a registered trademark of Patrick Volkerding and Slackware Linux, Inc. Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds. America Online and AOL are registered trademarks of America Online, Inc. in the United States and/or other countries. Apple, FireWire, Mac, Macintosh, Mac OS, Quicktime, and TrueType are trademarks of Apple Computer, Inc., registered in the United States and other countries. IBM, AIX, EtherJet, Netnity, OS/2, PowerPC, PS/2, S/390, and ThinkPad are trademarks of International Business Machines Corporation in the United States, other countries, or both. IEEE, POSIX, and 802 are registered trademarks of Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. in the United States. Intel, Celeron, EtherExpress, i386, i486, Itanium, Pentium, and Xeon are trademarks or registered trademarks of Intel Corporation or its subsidiaries in the United States and other countries. Microsoft, IntelliMouse, MS-DOS, Outlook, Windows, Windows Media and Windows NT are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries. Netscape and the Netscape Navigator are registered trademarks of Netscape Communications Corporation in the U.S. and other countries. Red Hat, RPM, are trademarks or registered trademarks of Red Hat, Inc. in the United States and other countries. XFree86 is a trademark of The XFree86 Project, Inc. Many of the designations used by manufacturers and sellers to distinguish their products are claimed as trademarks. Where those designations appear in this document, and Slackware Linux, Inc. was aware of the trademark claim, the designations have been followed by the or the symbol.
ISBN: 1-57176-338-4
Table of Contents
Preface.................................................................................................................... xv 1 An Introduction to Slackware Linux ................................................................. 1 1.1 What is Linux? ............................................................................................. 1 1.1.1 A Word on GNU ................................................................................ 1 1.2 What is Slackware? ...................................................................................... 2 1.3 Open Source and Free Software................................................................... 3 2 Help ....................................................................................................................... 7 2.1 System Help ................................................................................................. 7 2.1.1 man ..................................................................................................... 7
Directory ....................................................................... 9 2.1.2 The 2.1.3 HOWTOs and mini-HOWTOs ........................................................... 9 2.2 Online Help ................................................................................................ 10 2.2.1 The Ofcial Website and Help Forums ............................................ 10 2.2.2 E-mail Support ................................................................................. 11 2.2.3 Non-Ofcial Websites and Help Forums ......................................... 12 3 Installation .......................................................................................................... 15 3.1 Getting Slackware ...................................................................................... 15 3.1.1 The Ofcial Disc and Box Sets ........................................................ 15 3.1.2 Via the Internet ................................................................................. 16 3.2 System Requirements................................................................................. 17 3.2.1 The Software Series ......................................................................... 17 3.2.2 Installation Methods......................................................................... 18 3.2.3 Boot Disk ......................................................................................... 20 3.2.4 Root Disk ......................................................................................... 20 3.2.5 Supplemental Disk ........................................................................... 21 3.2.6 Making the Disks ............................................................................. 21 3.3 Partitioning................................................................................................. 22 3.4 The setup Program ..................................................................................... 24 3.4.1 HELP................................................................................................ 25
3.4.2 KEYMAP ......................................................................................... 26 3.4.3 ADDSWAP ...................................................................................... 27 3.4.4 TARGET .......................................................................................... 28 3.4.5 SOURCE .......................................................................................... 28 3.4.6 SELECT ........................................................................................... 29 3.4.7 INSTALL ......................................................................................... 30 3.4.8 CONFIGURE ................................................................................... 32 4 System Conguration ........................................................................................ 41 4.1 System Overview ....................................................................................... 41 4.1.1 File System Layout .......................................................................... 41 4.1.2 Finding Files..................................................................................... 44 Directory.................................................................... 46 4.1.3 The 4.2 Selecting a Kernel ...................................................................................... 50 4.2.1 The Directory on the Slackware CD-ROM ........................ 51 4.2.2 Compiling a Kernel from Source ..................................................... 51 4.2.3 Using Kernel Modules ..................................................................... 55 5 Network Conguration...................................................................................... 57 5.1 Introduction: netcong is your friend. ....................................................... 57 5.2 Network Hardware Conguration.............................................................. 58 5.2.1 Loading Network Modules .............................................................. 58 5.2.2 LAN (10/100/1000Base-T and Base-2) cards.................................. 59 5.2.3 Modems............................................................................................ 59 5.2.4 PCMCIA .......................................................................................... 60 5.3 TCP/IP Conguration ................................................................................ 61 5.3.1 DHCP ............................................................................................... 61 5.3.2 Static IP ............................................................................................ 63 !
" 5.3.3 ..................................................................... 63
#$!
" 5.3.4 ................................................................................ 64 %
&' 5.3.5 .......................................................................................... 65 5.4 PPP ............................................................................................................. 65 5.4.1 pppsetup ........................................................................................... 66 ()(( 5.4.2 ............................................................................................. 66
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5.5 Wireless...................................................................................................... 67 5.5.1 Hardware Support ............................................................................ 67 5.5.2 Congure the Wireless Settings ....................................................... 68 5.5.3 Congure the Network ..................................................................... 69 5.6 Network File Systems ................................................................................ 70 5.6.1 SMB/Samba/CIFS............................................................................ 70 5.6.2 Network File System (NFS)............................................................. 72 6 X Conguration.................................................................................................. 75 6.1 xorgcong ................................................................................................... 75 6.2 xorgsetup .................................................................................................... 81 6.3 xinitrc ......................................................................................................... 81 6.4 xwmcong................................................................................................... 83 6.5 xdm ............................................................................................................. 85 7 Booting ................................................................................................................ 89 7.1 LILO........................................................................................................... 89 7.2 LOADLIN .................................................................................................. 93 7.3 Dual Booting .............................................................................................. 94 7.3.1 Windows........................................................................................... 94 7.3.2 Linux ................................................................................................ 99 8 The Shell ........................................................................................................... 101 8.1 Users......................................................................................................... 101 8.1.1 Logging In ...................................................................................... 101 8.1.2 Root: The Superuser....................................................................... 102 8.2 The Command Line ................................................................................. 103 8.2.1 Running Programs.......................................................................... 103 8.2.2 Wildcard Matching......................................................................... 103 8.2.3 Input/Output Redirection and Piping ............................................. 105 8.3 The Bourne Again Shell (bash)................................................................ 106 8.3.1 Environment Variables ................................................................... 106 8.3.2 Tab Completion .............................................................................. 108 8.4 Virtual Terminals...................................................................................... 109 8.4.1 Screen ............................................................................................. 110
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9 Filesystem Structure ........................................................................................ 111 9.1 Ownership ................................................................................................ 111 9.2 Permissions .............................................................................................. 112 9.3 Links......................................................................................................... 115 9.4 Mounting Devices .................................................................................... 116 " &*+ 9.4.1 ................................................................................................ 117 9.4.2 mount and umount .......................................................................... 118 9.5 NFS Mounts ............................................................................................. 119 10 Handling Files and Directories ..................................................................... 121 10.1 Navigation : ls, cd, and pwd ................................................................... 121 10.1.1 ls ................................................................................................... 121 10.1.2 cd .................................................................................................. 123 10.1.3 pwd ............................................................................................... 123 10.2 Pagers: more, less, and most .................................................................. 124 10.2.1 more .............................................................................................. 124 10.2.2 less ................................................................................................ 125 10.2.3 most .............................................................................................. 125 10.3 Simple Output: cat and echo .................................................................. 125 10.3.1 cat ................................................................................................. 125 10.3.2 echo .............................................................................................. 126 10.4 Creation: touch and mkdir ...................................................................... 126 10.4.1 touch ............................................................................................. 127 10.4.2 mkdir ............................................................................................ 127 10.5 Copy and Move ...................................................................................... 128 10.5.1 cp .................................................................................................. 128 10.5.2 mv ................................................................................................. 129 10.6 Deletion: rm and rmdir .......................................................................... 129 10.6.1 rm ................................................................................................. 129 10.6.2 rmdir ............................................................................................. 130 10.7 Aliasing les with ln .............................................................................. 130
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11 Process Control .............................................................................................. 133 11.1 Backgrounding ....................................................................................... 133 11.2 Foregrounding ........................................................................................ 134 11.3 ps ............................................................................................................ 135 11.4 kill........................................................................................................... 139 11.5 top........................................................................................................... 141 12 Essential System Administration.................................................................. 143 12.1 Users and Groups ................................................................................... 143 12.1.1 Supplied Scripts ........................................................................... 143 12.1.2 Changing Passwords .................................................................... 148 12.1.3 Changing User Information.......................................................... 149 12.2 Users and Groups, the Hard Way ........................................................... 150 12.3 Shutting Down Properly......................................................................... 152 13 Basic Network Commands ............................................................................ 157 13.1 ping......................................................................................................... 157 13.2 traceroute ............................................................................................... 158 13.3 DNS Tools.............................................................................................. 158 13.3.1 host ............................................................................................... 159 13.3.2 nslookup ....................................................................................... 159 13.3.3 dig ................................................................................................. 160 13.4 nger ...................................................................................................... 161 13.5 telnet ....................................................................................................... 162 13.5.1 The other use of telnet.................................................................. 163 13.6 The Secure shell ..................................................................................... 164 13.7 email....................................................................................................... 164 13.7.1 pine ............................................................................................... 165 13.7.2 elm ................................................................................................ 167 13.7.3 mutt ............................................................................................... 168 13.7.4 nail................................................................................................ 169 13.8 Browsers................................................................................................. 170 13.8.1 lynx ............................................................................................... 170 13.8.2 links .............................................................................................. 171
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13.8.3 wget .............................................................................................. 172 13.9 FTP Clients ............................................................................................ 173 13.9.1 ftp.................................................................................................. 174 13.9.2 ncftp .............................................................................................. 175 13.10 Talking to Other People ....................................................................... 176 13.10.1 wall ............................................................................................. 177 13.10.2 talk .............................................................................................. 177 13.10.3 ytalk ............................................................................................ 178 14 Security ........................................................................................................... 181 14.1 Disabling Services.................................................................................. 181 14.1.1 Services started from inetd ........................................................... 181 14.1.2 Services started from init scripts .................................................. 182 14.2 Host Access Control............................................................................... 183 14.2.1 iptables ......................................................................................... 183 14.2.2 tcpwrappers .................................................................................. 185 14.3 Keeping Current ..................................................................................... 186 14.3.1 slackware-security mailing list ................................................ 186 (*% directory .................................................................. 187 14.3.2 The 15 Archive Files ................................................................................................... 189 15.1 gzip ......................................................................................................... 189 15.2 bzip2 ....................................................................................................... 190 15.3 tar ........................................................................................................... 190 15.4 zip ........................................................................................................... 193 16 Vi...................................................................................................................... 195 16.1 Starting vi............................................................................................... 195 16.2 Modes..................................................................................................... 197 16.2.1 Command Mode........................................................................... 197 16.2.2 Insert Mode .................................................................................. 199 16.3 Opening Files ......................................................................................... 200 16.4 Saving Files............................................................................................ 201 16.5 Quitting vi .............................................................................................. 201 16.6 vi Conguration ..................................................................................... 202
16.7 Vi Keys................................................................................................... 203 17 Emacs .............................................................................................................. 205 17.1 Starting emacs ........................................................................................ 206 17.1.1 Command Keys ............................................................................ 207 17.2 Buffers.................................................................................................... 207 17.3 Modes..................................................................................................... 208 17.3.1 Opening les ................................................................................ 209 17.4 Basic Editing .......................................................................................... 210 17.5 Saving Files............................................................................................ 212 17.5.1 Quitting Emacs............................................................................. 212 18 Slackware Package Management ................................................................. 215 18.1 Overview of Package Format ................................................................. 215 18.2 Package Utilities .................................................................................... 216 18.2.1 pkgtool.......................................................................................... 216 18.2.2 installpkg ...................................................................................... 218 18.2.3 removepkg .................................................................................... 219 18.2.4 upgradepkg ................................................................................... 220 18.2.5 rpm2tgz/rpm2targz ....................................................................... 221 18.3 Making Packages ................................................................................... 221 18.3.1 explodepkg .................................................................................... 222 18.3.2 makepkg ........................................................................................ 222 18.3.3 SlackBuild Scripts ........................................................................ 222 18.4 Making Tags and Tagles (for setup)..................................................... 223 19 ZipSlack .......................................................................................................... 225 19.1 What is ZipSlack? .................................................................................. 225 19.1.1 Advantages ................................................................................... 225 19.1.2 Disadvantages............................................................................... 226 19.2 Getting ZipSlack .................................................................................... 226 19.2.1 Installation.................................................................................... 226 19.3 Booting ZipSlack ................................................................................... 227
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Glossary ............................................................................................................... 229 A. The GNU General Public License................................................................. 245 A.1. Preamble................................................................................................. 245 A.2. TERMS AND CONDITIONS ............................................................... 246 A.3. How to Apply These Terms to Your New Programs.............................. 253 Index..................................................................................................................... 255
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List of Tables
2-1. Man Page Sections............................................................................................. 8 3-1. Slackware Linux, Inc. Contact Information .................................................... 16 3-2. System Requirements ...................................................................................... 17 3-3. Software Series ................................................................................................ 18 9-1. Octal Permission Values ................................................................................ 112 13-1. ftp commands............................................................................................... 174 16-1. Movement .................................................................................................... 203 16-2. Editing ......................................................................................................... 203 16-3. Searching ..................................................................................................... 204 16-4. Saving and Quitting ..................................................................................... 204 17-1. Basic Emacs Editing Commands................................................................. 210 18-1. installpkg Options.......................................................................................... ?? 18-2. removepkg Options ...................................................................................... 219 18-3. Tagle Status Options.................................................................................. 223
List of Figures
4-1. Kernel Conguration Menu............................................................................. 53 6-1. xorgcong Mouse Conguration ..................................................................... 76 6-2. xorgcong Horizontal Sync ............................................................................. 78 6-3. xorgcong Vertical Sync.................................................................................. 78 6-4. xorgcong Video Card ..................................................................................... 79 6-5. Desktop Conguration with xorgcong........................................................... 84 7-1. lilocong .......................................................................................................... 90 7-2. lilocong Expert Menu .................................................................................... 92 11-1. Basic ps output............................................................................................. 135 13-1. Telnetting to a webserver............................................................................. 163 13-2. The Pine main menu .................................................................................... 165 13-3. Elm main screen .......................................................................................... 167
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13-4. Mutt main screen ......................................................................................... 168 13-5. Lynx default start page ................................................................................ 171 13-6. Links, with the le menu open .................................................................... 172 13-7. Two users in a talk session .......................................................................... 177 13-8. Two users in a ytalk session......................................................................... 179 16-1. A vi session.................................................................................................. 196 18-1. Pkgtools main menu. .................................................................................. 217 18-2. Pkgtool view mode ...................................................................................... 217
List of Examples
8-1. Listing Environment Variables with set ......................................................... 107
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Preface
Intended Audience
The Slackware Linux operating system is a powerful platform for Intel-based computers. It is designed to be stable, secure, and functional as both a high-end server and powerful workstation. This book is designed to get you started with the Slackware Linux operating system. Its not meant to cover every single aspect of the distribution, but rather to show what it is capable of and give you a basic working knowledge of the system. As you gain experience with Slackware Linux, we hope you nd this book to be a handy reference. We also hope youll lend it to all of your friends when they come asking about that cool Slackware Linux operating system youre running. While this book may not an edge-of-your-seat novel, we certainly tried to make it as entertaining as possible. With any luck, well get a movie deal. Of course, we also hope you are able to learn from it and nd it useful. And now, on with the show.
Changes from the First Edition

This second edition is the culmination of years of hard work by the dedicated members of the Slackware Documentation Project. The following are the major changes in this new edition:
Chapter 3, Installation, has been modied with new screenshots of the installer, and reects changes in disk-sets, and CD installation.
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Preface Chapter 4, System Conguration, has been updated with new information about Linux 2.6.x kernels. Chapter 5, Network Conguration, has been expanded with further explanation of Samba, NFS, and DHCP. A section on wireless networking has also been added. This chapter now reects major changes in how Slackware handles network setup. Chapter 6, X Window System, has been substantially rewritten for Xorg based systems. This chapter now also covers the xdm graphical login manager. Chapter 13, Basic Network Commands, has been enhanced with information about additional network utilities. Chapter 14, Security, is a new chapter with this edition. It explains how to keep a Slackware Linux system secure. Chapter 17, Emacs, is a new chapter with this edition. It describes how to use Emacs, a powerful editor for Unix. Chapter 18, Package Management, has been updated with information about SlackBuild scripts. There are many other changes, both minor and major, to reect changes in Slackware as it has matured.
Organization of this Book

Chapter 1, Introduction Provides introductory material on Linux, Slackware, and the Open Source and Free Software Movements. Chapter 2, Help Describes the help resources available on a Slackware Linux system and online.
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Preface Chapter 3, Installation Describes the installation process step-by-step with screenshots to provide an illustrative walk-through. Chapter 4, System Conguration Describes the important conguration les and covers kernel recompilation. Chapter 5, Network Conguration Describes how to connect a Slackware Linux machine to a network. Covers TCP/IP, PPP/dial-up, wireless networking, and more. Chapter 6, The X Window System Describes how to setup and use the graphical X Window System in Slackware. Chapter 7, Booting Describes the process by which a computer boots into Slackware Linux. Also covers dual-booting with Microsoft Windows operating systems. Chapter 8, The Shell Describes the powerful command line interface for Linux. Chapter 9, Filesystem Structure Describes the lesystem structure, including le ownership, permission, and linking. Chapter 10, Handling Files and Directories Describes the commands used to manipulate les and directories from the command line interface. Chapter 11, Process Control Describes the powerful Linux process management commands used to manage
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Preface multiple running applications. Chapter 12, Essential System Administration Describes basic system administration tasks such as adding and removing users, shutting down the system properly, and more. Chapter 13, Basic Network Commands Describes the collection of network clients included with Slackware. Chapter 14, Security Describes many different tools available to help keep your Slackware system secure, including iptables and tcpwrappers. Chapter 15, Archive Files Describes the different compression and archive utilities available for Linux. Chapter 16, vi Describes the powerful vi text editor. Chapter 17, Emacs Describes the powerful Emacs text editor. Chapter 18, Slackware Package Management Describes the Slackware package utilities and the process used to create custom packages and tagles. Chapter 19, ZipSlack Describes the ZipSlack version of Linux that can be used from Windows without requiring an installation.
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Preface Appendix A, The GNU General Public License Describes the license terms under which Slackware Linux and this book can be copied and distributed.
Conventions used in this book

To provide a consistent and easy to read text, several conventions are followed throughout the book.
Typographic Conventions
Italic An italic font is used for commands, emphasized text, and the rst usage of technical terms.
,

( *
Afont is used for error messages, commands, environment variables, names of ports, hostnames, user names, group names, device names, variables, and code fragments. Bold A bold font is used for user input in examples.

&(*
User Input
Keys are shown in bold to stand out from other text. Key combinations that are meant to be typed simultaneously are shown with + between the keys, such as: Ctrl+Alt+Del Meaning the user should type the Ctrl, Alt, and Del keys at the same time.
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Preface Keys that are meant to be typed in sequence will be separated with commas, for example: Ctrl+X, Ctrl+S Would mean that the user is expected to type the Ctrl and X keys simultaneously and then to type the Ctrl and S keys simultaneously.
Examples
Examples starting with E:\> indicate a MS-DOS command. Unless otherwise noted, these commands may be executed from a Command Prompt window in a modern Microsoft Windows environment.
D:\>
rawrite a: bare.i
Examples starting with # indicate a command that must be invoked as the superuser in Slackware. You can login as root to type the command, or login as your normal account and use su(1) to gain superuser privileges.
#
dd if=bare.i of=/dev/fd0
Examples starting with % indicate a command that should be invoked from a normal user account. Unless otherwise noted, C-shell syntax is used for setting environment variables and other shell commands.
%
top
Acknowledgments
This project is the accumulation of months of work by many dedicated individuals. It would not have been possible for me to produce this work in a vacuum. Many people deserve our thanks for their seless acts: Keith Keller for his work on wireless networking, Joost Kremers for his great work in single-handedly writing the emacs section, Simon Williams for the security chapter, Jurgen Phillippaerts for basic net-
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Preface working commands, Cibao Cu Ali G Colibri for the inspiration and a good kick in the pants. Countless others have sent in suggestions and xes. An incomplete list includes: Jacob Anhoej, John Yast, Sally Welch, Morgan Landry, and Charlie Law. Id also like to thank Keith Keller for hosting the mailing list for this project, as well as Carl Inglis for the initial web hosting. Last but not least, Id like to thank Patrick J. Volkerding for Slackware Linux, and David Cantrell, Logan Johnson, and Chris Lumens for Slackware Linux Essentials 1st Edition. Without their initial framework, none of this would have ever happened. Many others have contributed in small and large ways to this project and have not been listed. I hope they will forgive me for a poor memory. Alan Hicks, May 2005
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Preface
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Chapter 1
An Introduction to Slackware Linux

1.1 What is Linux?
Linus Torvalds started Linux, an operating system kernel, as a personal project in 1991. He started the project because he wanted to run a Unix-based operating system without spending a lot of money. In addition, he wanted to learn the ins and outs of the 386 processor. Linux was released free of charge to the public so that anyone could study it and make improvements under the General Public License. (See Section 1.3 and Appendix A for an explanation of the license.) Today, Linux has grown into a major player in the operating system market. It has been ported to run on a variety of system architectures, including HP/Compaqs Alpha, Suns SPARC and UltraSPARC, and Motorolas PowerPC chips (through Apple Macintosh and IBM RS/6000 computers.) Hundreds, if not thousands, of programmers all over the world now develop Linux. It runs programs like Sendmail, Apache, and BIND, which are very popular software used to run Internet servers. Its important to remember that the term Linux really refers to the kernel - the core of the operating system. This core is responsible for controlling your computers processor, memory, hard drives, and peripherals. Thats all Linux really does: It controls the operations of your computer and makes sure that all of its programs behave. Various companies and individuals bundle the kernel and various programs together to make an operating system. We call each bundle a Linux distribution.
Chapter 1 An Introduction to Slackware Linux
A Word on GNU
The Linux kernel project began as a solo endeavor by Linus Torvalds in 1991, but as Isaac Newton once said, If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants. When Linus Torvalds began the kernel the Free Software Foundation had already established the idea of collaborative software. They entitled their effort GNU, a recursive acronym that means simply GNUs Not Unix. GNU software ran atop the Linux kernel from day 1. Their compiler gcc was used to compile the kernel. Today many GNU tools from gcc to gnutar are still at the basis of every major Linux distribution. For this reason many of the Free Software Foundations proponents fervently state that their work should be given the same credit as the Linux kernel. They strongly suggest that all Linux distributions should refer to themselves as GNU/Linux distributions. This is the topic of many amewars, surpassed only by the ancient vi versus emacs holy war. The purpose of this book is not to fan the res of this heated discussion, but rather to clarify the terminology for neophytes. When one sees GNU/Linux it means a Linux distribution. When one sees Linux they can either be referring to the kernel, or to a distribution. It can be rather confusing. Typically the term GNU/Linux isnt used because its a mouth full.
1.2 What is Slackware?

Slackware, started by Patrick Volkerding in late 1992, and initially released to the world on July 17, 1993, was the rst Linux distribution to achieve widespread use. Volkerding rst learned of Linux when he needed an inexpensive LISP interpreter for a project. One of the few distributions available at the time was SLS Linux from Soft Landing Systems. Volkerding used SLS Linux, xing bugs as he found them. Eventually, he decided to merge all of these bugxes into his own private distribution that he and his friends could use. This private distribution quickly gained popularity, so Volkerding decided to name it Slackware and make it publicly available. Along the way, Patrick added new things to Slackware; a user friendly installation program
Chapter 1 An Introduction to Slackware Linux based on a menuing system, as well as the concept of package management, which allows users to easily add, remove, or upgrade software packages on their systems. There are many reasons why Slackware is Linuxs oldest living distribution. It does not try to emulate Windows, it tries to be as Unix-like as possible. It does not try to cover up processes with fancy, point-and-click GUIs (Graphical User Interfaces). Instead, it puts users in control by letting them see exactly whats going on. Its development is not rushed to meet deadlines-each version comes out when it is ready. Slackware is for people who enjoy learning and tweaking their system to do exactly what they want. Slackwares stability and simplicity are why people will continue to use it for years to come. Slackware currently enjoys a reputation as a solid server and a no-nonsense workstation. You can nd Slackware desktops running nearly any window manager or desktop environment, or none at all. Slackware servers power businesses, acting in every capacity that a server can be used in. Slackware users are among the most satised Linux users. Of course, wed say that. :^)
1.3 Open Source and Free Software

Within the Linux community, there are two major ideological movements at work. The Free Software movement (which well get into in a moment) is working toward the goal of making all software free of intellectual property restrictions. Followers of this movement believe these restrictions hamper technical improvement and work against the good of the community. The Open Source movement is working toward most of the same goals, but takes a more pragmatic approach to them. Followers of this movement prefer to base their arguments on the economic and technical merits of making source code freely available, rather than the moral and ethical principles that drive the Free Software Movement. At the other end of the spectrum are groups that wish to maintain tighter controls over their software. The Free Software movement is headed by the Free Software Foundation, a fundraising organization for the GNU project. Free software is more of an ideology.
Chapter 1 An Introduction to Slackware Linux The oft-used expression is free as in speech, not free as in beer. In essence, free software is an attempt to guarantee certain rights for both users and developers. These freedoms include the freedom to run the program for any reason, to study and modify the source code, to redistribute the source, and to share any modications you make. In order to guarantee these freedoms, the GNU General Public License (GPL) was created. The GPL, in brief, provides that anyone distributing a compiled program which is licensed under the GPL must also provide source code, and is free to make modications to the program as long as those modications are also made available in source code form. This guarantees that once a program is opened to the community, it cannot be closed except by consent of every author of every piece of code (even the modications) within it. Most Linux programs are licensed under the GPL. It is important to note that the GPL does not say anything about price. As odd as it may sound, you can charge for free software. The free part is in the liberties you have with the source code, not in the price you pay for the software. (However, once someone has sold you, or even given you, a compiled program licensed under the GPL they are obligated to provide its source code as well.) Another popular license is the BSD license. In contrast to the GPL, the BSD license gives no requirement for the release of a programs source code. Software released under the BSD license allows redistribution in source or binary form provided only a few conditions are met. The authors credentials cannot be used as a sort of advertisement for the program. It also indemnies the author from liability for damages that may arise from the use of the software. Much of the software included in Slackware Linux is BSD licensed. At the forefront of the younger Open Source movement, the Open Source Initiative is an organization that solely exists to gain support for open source software, that is, software that has the source code available as well as the ready-to-run program. They do not offer a specic license, but instead they support the various types of open source licenses available. The idea behind the OSI is to get more companies behind open source by allowing them to write their own open source licenses and have those licenses certied by
Chapter 1 An Introduction to Slackware Linux the Open Source Initiative. Many companies want to release source code, but do not want to use the GPL. Since they cannot radically change the GPL, they are offered the opportunity to provide their own license and have it certied by this organization. While the Free Software Foundation and the Open Source Initiative work to help each other, they are not the same thing. The Free Software Foundation uses a specic license and provides software under that license. The Open Source Initiative seeks support for all open source licenses, including the one from the Free Software Foundation. The grounds on which each argues for making source code freely available sometimes divides the two movements, but the fact that two ideologically diverse groups are working toward the same goal lends credence to the efforts of each.
Chapter 1 An Introduction to Slackware Linux
Chapter 2
Help
Often there are times when you might need help with a specic command, setting up a program, or getting a piece of hardware to work. Maybe you simply want to understand a given command better, or see what other options are available to use with it. Luckily, there are a variety of ways that you can get the help youre looking for. When you install Slackware you have the option of installing packages from the F series which includes FAQs and HOWTOs. Programs also come with help about their options, conguration les, and usage.
2.1 System Help

man
The man command (short for manual) is the traditional form of online documentation in Unix and Linux operating systems. Comprised of specially formatted les, the man pages, are written for the vast majority of commands and are distributed with the software itself. Executing man somecommand will display the man page for (naturally) the command specied, in our example this would be the imaginary program somecommand. As you might imagine, the amount of man pages can quickly add up, becoming overly confusing and seriously complicated, even for an advanced user. So, for this reason, man pages are grouped into enumerated sections. This system has been around for a very long time; enough so that you will often see commands, programs, and even programming library functions referred to with their man section number.
Chapter 2 Help For example: You might see a reference to man(1). The numbering tells you that man is documented in section 1 (user commands); you can specify that you want the section 1 man page for man with the command man 1 man. Specifying the section that man should look in is useful in the case of multiple items with the same name. Table 2-1. Man Page Sections Section Section 1 Section 2 Section 3 Section 4 Section 5 Section 6 Section 7 Section 8 Contents user commands (intro only) system calls C library calls %) devices (e.g., , ) )( *). le formats and protocols (e.g., wtmp, , nfs) games (intro only) conventions, macro packages, etc. (e.g., nroff, ascii) system administration (intro only)
In addition to man(1), there are the commands whatis(1) and apropos(1) available to you, whose shared purpose is to make it easier to nd information in the man system. The command whatis gives a very brief description of system commands, somewhat in the style of a pocket command reference. Example:
whatis whatis whatis (1) - search the whatis database for complete words
%
Chapter 2 Help The command apropos is used to search for a man page containing a given keyword. Example:
%
apropos wav cdda2wav (1) netwave_cs (4) oggdec (1) wavelan (4) wavelan_cs (4) wvlan_cs (4)
a sampling utility that dumps CD audio data into wav sound files Xircom Creditcard Netwave device driver simple decoder, Ogg Vorbis file to PCM audio file (WAV or RAW) AT&T GIS WaveLAN ISA device driver AT&T GIS WaveLAN PCMCIA device driver Lucent WaveLAN/IEEE 802.11 device driver
If youd like further information on any of these commands, read their man pages for the details. ;)
The
/ 0213$/4$576
Directory
The source for most packages that we build comes with some sort of documentation: README les, usage instructions, license les, etc. Any sort of documentation
that comes with the source is included and installed on your system in the directory. Each program will (usually) install its own documentation in the order of:
'&
8(
9 * -;: 8# )

Where $program is the name of the program you are wanting to read about, and $version is (obviously) the appropriate version of software package installed on your system. For example, to read the documentation for the command man(1) you would want to cd to:
%
cd /usr/doc/man-$version
If reading the appropriate man page(s) doesnt provide you with enough information,
or address what youre looking for in particular, the directory should be your next stop.
Chapter 2 Help
HOWTOs and mini-HOWTOs

It is in the truest spirit of the Open Source community that brings us to the HOWTO/mini-HOWTO collection. These les are exactly what they sound like documents and guides describing how to do stuff. If you installed the HOWTO '
<')= :>?&@A? collection, the HOWTOs will be installed to and the '&
<')= mini-HOWTOs to :&:> ?&@)A ? . Also included in the same package series is a collection of FAQs, which is an acronym which stands for F requently Asked Questions These documents are written in a Question and answer style for (surprise) Frequently Asked Questions. The FAQs can often be a very useful place to look if youre just looking for a Quick Fix to something. If you decide to install the FAQs '&
<)= during setup, you will nd them installed to the :BC D directory. These les are well worth reading whenever youre not quite sure how to proceed with something. They cover an amazing range of topics, more often than not in a surprisingly detailed manner. Good stuff!
2.2 Online Help

In addition to the documentation provided and installable with the Slackware Linux Operating System, there are a vast multitude of online resources available for you to learn from as well.
10
Chapter 2 Help
The Ofcial Website and Help Forums

The Ofcial Slackware Website1 The Ofcial Slackware Linux website is sometimes out of date, but still contains information relevant to the latest Slackware versions. At one time an active help forum existed there before a horde of trolls, troublemakers, and whiners descended on the forum. Maintaining the forum was beginning to be too much work, and so Pat shut it down. One can nd that old forum back up and running complete with searchable archives of the old data at EGFGFIHKJ/G/MLGLGLONP0Q1SR3UTV576VWITXN6V5ZY[/ HGEU53V0Y[/ . After the forums were taken down on EGFGFGHKJ/G/I1GTVW76;\SLQW3$R]N6V5Y , several other sites sprang up that offered forum support for Slackware. After much thought, Pat chose to endorse LGLILONT7^Z_G0G`7aV0bRG1MF[^5 _b1XN53Vc as the ofcial forum for Slackware Linux.
E-mail Support
Everyone who purchases an ofcial CD set is entitled to free installation support via e-mail from the developer. That having been said, please keep in mind that we, the developers, (and a vast majority of users) of Slackware are of The Old School. That means that we prefer to help those who have a sincere interest and are willing to help themselves in the process. We will always do our best to help everyone who emails us with support questions. However, Please check your documentation and the website (especially the FAQs and maybe some of the forums listed below) before e-mailing. You may get a faster answer that way, and the less e-mail we have to answer, obviously the sooner we will be of assistance to those that need it. The e-mail address for technical support is: support@slackware.com. Other e-mail addresses and contact information are listed on the website. Slackware Linux Project Mailing Lists We have several mailing lists, available in digest and normal forms. Check the instructions for how to subscribe.
1 http://www.slackware.com
11
Chapter 2 Help To subscribe to a mailing list, email:

majordomo@slackware.com
with the phrase subscribe [name of list] in the body of the email. The list choices are described below (use one the names below for the name of the list). Archives of the mailing list can be found on Slackwares website at:
http://slackware.com/lists/archive/
slackware-announce
The slackware-announce mailing list is for announcements of new versions, major updates and other general information.
slackware-security
The slackware-security mailing list is for announcements relating to security issues. Any exploits or other vulnerabilities directly pertaining to Slackware will get posted to this list immediately. These lists are also available in digest format. This means that you get one large message per day instead of several messages throughout the day. Since the slackware mailing lists do not allow users to post, and the lists are such low trafc, most users nd little advantage in the digest lists. Still, they are available if you want them by subscribing to slackware-announce-digest or slackware-security-digest.
Non-Ofcial Websites and Help Forums

Websites Google (EGFIFGHKJ/G/MLGLGLONPcb5G5
cQTSRXN6V5ZY
The Kung-Fu Master of Search Engines. When you absolutely, positively gotta
12
Chapter 2 Help nd every last kernel of information on a subject: Accept no substitutes. Google:Linux (EGFIFGHKJ/G/MLGLGLONPcb5G5 Linux-Specic searches Google:BSD (EGFIFGHKJ/G/MLGLGLONdcU5G5
cQTSRXN6V5ZY[/MeQ14 cQTSRXN6V5ZY[/GT7^Z_G0G`
BSD-Specic searches. Slackware is so generic as a Unix work-a-like operating system that one can as often as not nd very detailed information that is almost 100% relevant to Slackware here. Many times a BSD search reveals far more technical information than the often PR-related Linux searches. Google:Groups (EGFGFGHKJ/I/
cI3$5 0GHQ1fNdcb5G5 cQTVR]N6V5ZY
Search through decades of Usenet posts for your pearls of wisdom.

EGFIFGHKJ/G/ 0Q1SR3UTV576VWITXN6V5ZY
A virtual treasure-trove of knowledge, good advice, rst-hand experience and interesting articles. Often the rst place youll hear about new developments in the world of Slackware.
Web-based Resources linuxquestions.org6 The ofcially sanctioned web-forum for Slackware users. LinuxISO.org Slackware Forum7 A place to download and get help with Linux.
6 http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/forumdisplay.php?forumid=14 7 http://forums.linuxiso.org/viewforum.php?f=25
13
Chapter 2 Help alt.os.linux.slackware FAQ8 Another FAQ
Usenet Groups (NNTP) Usenet has long been a place for geeks to gather and help one another. There are few newsgroups dedicated to Slackware Linux, but they tend to be lled with very knowledgeable people.
alt.os.linux.slackware
better known as aols (not to be confused with AOL!) is one of the most active places to nd technical help with Slackware problems. Like every Usenet newsgroup, a few unhelpful participants (trolls) can mar the experience with constant arguing. Learning to ignore the trolls and identifying the truly helpful people is key to making the most of this resource.
alt.os.linux.slackware,
8 http://wombat.san-francisco.ca.us/perl/fom
14
Chapter 3
Installation
Before you can use Slackware Linux, youll have to obtain and install it. Getting Slackware is as easy as purchasing it or downloading it for free over the Internet. Installing it is also easy as long as you have some basic knowledge about your computer and are willing to learn a few other things. The installation program itself is very much a step-by-step process. Because of this, you can be up and running very quickly. In fact, Slackware boasts one of the lowest installation times of any fullfeatured Linux distribution.
3.1 Getting Slackware

The Ofcial Disc and Box Sets
The ofcial Slackware Linux CD set is available from Slackware Linux, Inc. The CD set consists of 4 discs. The rst disk contains all the software needed for a basic server install, and the X window system. The second cd is a live cd; that is, a bootable cd that installs into RAM and gives you a temporary installation to play around with or do a data or machine rescue. This cd also contains a few packages such as the KDE and GNOME desktop environments. A few other goodies are included on the second cd including many non-vital packages in the extra folder. The third and fourth CDs contain the source code to all of Slackware, along with the original edition of this book. One may also purchase a boxed set that includes the 4 discs and a copy of this book, as well as lots of neat Slackware gear to show off your geek pride. CD subscriptions
15
Chapter 3 Installation are available at a reduced rate also. The preferred method for shopping for Slackware merchandise is online at the Slackware store.
EGFIFGHKJ/G/I1MFb53$RXN1GTSW76Z\SLQW3$RXN6V5ZY
You can also call or e-mail your order in. Table 3-1. Slackware Linux, Inc. Contact Information Method Telephone Website Email Postal Contact Details 1-(925) 674-0783 http://store.slackware.com orders@slackware.com 1164 Claremont Drive, Brentwood, CA 94513
Via the Internet

Slackware Linux is also freely available over the Internet. You may email in your support questions, but higher priority will be given to those who have purchased the ofcial CD set. With that said, we get a lot of e-mails and our time is rather limited. Before e-mailing for support consider reading Chapter 2 rst. The ofcial Slackware Linux Project website is located at:
EGFIFGHKJ/G/MLGLGLON1STSW76;\SLbW3$R]N65ZY[/
The primary FTP location for Slackware Linux is:

g FIHKJ/G/ g FGHKN1GTVW76;\SLQW3$R]N6V5Y[/ HG0Geb/G1GTSW76;\VLQW3$RG/
Bear in mind that our ftp site, while open for general use, does not have unlimited bandwidth. Please consider using a mirror near you to download Slackware. An incomplete list of mirrors can be found on our site at EGFIFGHKJ/G/MLGLGLON1STSW76;\SLbW3$R]N65ZY[/ cbR Fb1GTSW76;\ .
16
Chapter 3 Installation
3.2 System Requirements

An easy Slackware installation requires, at minimum, the following: Table 3-2. System Requirements Hardware Processor RAM Disk Space Media Drive Requirement 586 32 MB 1GB 4x CD-ROM
If you have the bootable CD, you will probably not need a oppy drive. Of course, it stands to reason that if you dont possess a CD-ROM drive, you will need a oppy drive to do a network install. A network card is required for an NFS install. See the section called NFS for more information. The disk space requirement is somewhat tricky. The 1GB recommendation is usually safe for a minimal install, but if you do a full install, you will need around two gigabytes of available hard disk space plus additional space for personal les.. Most users dont do a full install. In fact, many run Slackware on as little as 100MB of hard disk space. Slackware can be installed to systems with less RAM, smaller hard drives, and weaker CPUs, but doing so will require a little elbow grease. If youre up for a < little work, take a look at the ?&@ ,h, A)iA le in the distribution tree for a few helpful hints.
The Software Series

For reasons of simplicity, Slackware has historically been divided into software series. Once called disk sets because they were designed for oppy-based installation, the software series are now used primarily to categorize the packages included in Slackware. Today, oppy installation is no longer possible.
17
Chapter 3 Installation The following is a brief description of each software series. Table 3-3. Software Series Series A AP D E F GNOME K KDE Contents The base system. Contains enough software to get up and running and have a text editor and basic communication program. Various applications that do not require the X Window System. Program development tools. Compilers, debuggers, interpreters, and man pages are all here. GNU Emacs. FAQs, HOWTOs, and other miscellaneous documentation. The GNOME desktop environment. The source code for the Linux kernel. The K Desktop Environment. An X environment which shares a lot of look-and-feel features with MacOS and Windows. The Qt library, which KDE requires, is also in this series. Internationalization packages for the KDE desktop. Libraries. Dynamically linked libraries required by many other programs. Networking programs. Daemons, mail programs, telnet, news readers, and so on. teTeX document formatting system. The Tool Command Language. Tk, TclX, and TkDesk. The base X Window System. X Applications that are not part of a major desktop environment (for example, Ghostscript and Netscape). BSD Console games
KDEI L N T TCL X XAP Y
18
Installation Methods
Floppy While it was once possible to install all of Slackware Linux from oppy disks, the increasing size of software packages (indeed, of some individual programs) has forced the abandonment of the oppy install. As late as Slackware version 7.1 a partial install was possible using oppy disks. The A and N series could be nearly entirely installed, providing a base system from which to install the rest of the distribution. If you are considering a oppy install (typically on older hardware), it is typically recommended to nd another way, or use an older release. Slackware 4.0 is still very popular for this reason, as is 7.0. Please note that oppy disks are still required for a CD-ROM install if you do not have a bootable CD, as well as for an NFS install.
CD-ROM If you have the bootable CD, available in the ofcial disc set published by Slackware Linux, Inc. (see the section called Getting Slackware), a CD-based installation will be a bit simpler for you. If not, you will need to boot from oppies. Also, if you have special hardware that makes usage of the kernel on the bootable CD problematic, you may need to use specialized oppies. As of Slackware version 8.1, a new method is used for creating the bootable CDs, which does not work as well with certain aky BIOS chips (it is worth noting that most all Linux CDs suffer from this these days). If that is the case, we recommend booting from a oppy disk. Section 3.2.3 and Section 3.2.5 provide information on choosing and creating oppies from which to boot, should this be necessary.
19
Chapter 3 Installation NFS NFS (the Network File System) is a way of making lesystems available to remote machines. An NFS install allows you to install Slackware from another computer on your network. The machine from which you are installing needs to be congured to export the Slackware distribution tree to the machine to which youre installing. This, of course, involves some knowledge of NFS, which is covered in Section 5.6. It is possible to perform an NFS install via such methods as PLIP (over a parallel port), SLIP, and PPP (though not over a modem connection). However, we recommend the use of a network card if available. After all, installing an operating system through your printer port is going to be a very, very slow process.
Boot Disk
The boot disk is the oppy you actually boot from to begin the installation. It contains a compressed kernel image which is used to control the hardware during installation. Therefore, it is very much required (unless youre booting from CD, as is dis+

' cussed in the section called CD-ROM). The boot disks are located in the directory in the distribution tree. There are more Slackware boot disks than you can shake a stick at (which is to say about 16). A complete list of boot disks, with a description of each, is available in +

)'j h ,h C)k AiA . However, most people the Slackware distribution tree in the le +*G! )l are able to use the (for IDE devices) or (for SCSI devices) boot disk image. See Section 3.2.6 for instructions on making a disk from an image. After booting, you will be prompted to insert the root disk. We recommend that you just humor the boot disk and play along.
20
Root Disk
The root disks contain the setup program and a lesystem which is used during installation. They are also required. The root disk images are located in the directory rootdisks in the distribution tree. Youll have to make two root disks from the '&*)Sm *Gon .'
)7' ( *G' and images. Here you can also nd the , , G' +

97 & , and disks. -
Supplemental Disk
A supplemental disk is needed if you are performing an NFS install or installing to a system with PCMCIA devices. Supplemental disks are in the rootdsks directory in .
7 & ( *G' the distribution tree, with the lenames and . Recently other )G' +

97 & supplemental disks such as and have been added. The rescue disk is a small oppy root image that runs in a 4MB RAM drive. It includes some basic networking utilities and the vi editor for quick xes on busted machines. The &+
)
9$' disk is used to boot other devices. Boot off this disk if your bootable CD-ROM drive doesnt want to boot the Slackware CDs. It will prompt you for different things to boot and may offer a convenient way to work around a buggy BIOS. The root disk will instruct you on the use of supplemental disks when it is loaded.
Making the Disks

Once youve selected a boot disk image, you need to put it on a oppy. The process is slightly different depending on which operating system youre using to make the disks. If youre running Linux (or pretty much any Unix-like OS) youll need to use +*G! is your disk image le and your oppy drive the dd(1) command. Assuming # "))p +*G! is , the command to make a oppy is:
%
dd if=bare.i of=/dev/fd0
21
Chapter 3 Installation If youre running a Microsoft OS, youll need to use the C@ A h h i h program, which is included in the distribution tree in the same directories as the oppy images. Again + *G! assuming that is your disk image le and your oppy drive is C7r , open a DOS prompt and type the following:
C:\ rawrite a: bare.i
j jq
3.3 Partitioning
After booting from your preferred media, you will need to partition your hard disk. The disk partition is where the Linux lesystem will be created and is where Slackware will be installed. At the very minimum we recommend creating two partitions; one for your root lesystem ( ) and one for swap space. After the root disk nishes loading, it will present you with a login prompt. Log in as root (there is no password). At the shell prompt, run either cfdisk(8) or fdisk(8). The cfdisk program provides a more user-friendly interface than the regular fdisk program, but does lack some features. We will briey explain the fdisk program below. Begin by running fdisk for your hard disk. In Linux, the hard disks do not have drive letters, but are represented by a le. The rst IDE hard disk (primary master) #%)* #%)+ is , the primary slave is , and so on. SCSI disks follow the same type # system, but are in the form of i . You will need to start fdisk and pass it your hard disk:
#
fdisk /dev/hda
Like all good Unix programs, fdisk gives you a prompt (thought you were getting a menu, right?). The rst thing you should do is examine your current partitions. We do that by typing p at the fdisk prompt:
Command (m for help): p
22
Chapter 3 Installation This will display all sorts of information about your current partitions. Most people pick a free drive to install to and then remove any existing partitions on it to create room for the Linux partitions.
Warning: IT IS VERY IMPORTANT THAT YOU BACK UP ANY INFORMATION YOU WANT TO SAVE BEFORE DESTROYING THE PARTITION IT LIVES ON.
There is no easy way to recover from deleting a partition, so always back up before playing with them. Looking at the table of partition information you should see a partition number, the size of the partition, and its type. Theres more information, but dont worry about that for now. We are going to delete all of the partitions on this drive to create the Linux ones. We run the d command to delete those:
Command (m for help): d Partition number (1-4): 1
This process should be continued for each of the partitions. After deleting the partitions we are ready to create the Linux ones. We have decided to create one partition for our root lesystem and one for swap. It is worth noting that Unix partitioning schemes are the subject of many ame wars, and that most users will tell you the best way to do it. At a minimum, you should create one partition for and one for swap. Over time, youll develop a method that works well for you. I use two basic partition schemes. The rst is for a desktop. I make 4 partitions, , %
' )
* , and swap. This lets me re-install or upgrade the entire installation - , under without wiping out my data les under /home or my custom compiled ap )
*)
*) plications under . For servers, I often replace the partition with # * a partition. Many different servers store information on that partition and hav ing it kept separate from has certain performance benets. For now, were sticking with just two partitions: and swap.
23
Chapter 3 Installation Now we create the partitions with the n command:

Command (m for help): n Command action e extended p primary partition (1-4) p Partition number (1-4):1 First cylinder (0-1060, default 0):0 Last cylinder or +size or +sizeM or +sizeK (0-1060, default 1060): +64M
You need to make sure you create primary partitions. The rst partition is going to be our swap partition. We tell fdisk to make partition number 1 a primary partition. We start it at cylinder 0 and for the ending cylinder we type +64M. This will give us a 64 megabyte partition for swap. (The size of the swap partition you need actually depends on the amount of RAM you have. It is conventional wisdom that a swap space double the size of your RAM should be created.) Then we dene primary partition number 2 starting at the rst available cylinder and going all the way to the end of the drive.
Command (m for help):n Command action e extended p primary partition (1-4) p Partition number (1-4):2 First cylinder (124-1060, default 124):124 Last cylinder or +size or +sizeM or +sizeK (124-1060, default 1060): 1060
We are almost done. We need to change the type of the rst partition to type 82 (Linux swap). Type t to change the type, select the rst partition, and type 82. Before writing your changes to the disk, you should look at the new partition table one last time. Use the p in fdisk to display the partition table. If everything looks good, type w to write your changes to the disk and quit fdisk.
24
3.4 The setup Program

Once you have created your partitions, you are ready to install Slackware. The next step in the installation process is running the setup(8) program. To do so, simply type setup at the shell prompt. setup is a menu-driven system for actually installing the Slackware packages and conguring your system.
Slackware Linux Setup (version 9.1.0)

Welcome to Slackware Linux Setup. Select an option below using the UP/DOWN keys and SPACE or ENTER. Alternate keys may also be used: +, -, and TAB. HELP KEYMAP ADDSWAP TARGET SOURCE SELECT INSTALL CONFIGURE EXIT Read the Slackware Setup HELP file Remap your keyboard if yourre not using a US one Set up your swap partition(s) Set up your target partitions Select source media Select categories of software to install Install selected software Reconfigure your Linux system Exit Slackware Linux Setup
< OK > < Cancel >
The setup process goes something like this: You step through each option in the setup program, in the order they are listed. (Of course, you are free to do things in almost any order you choose, but chances are it isnt going to work out very well.) Menu items are selected using the up and down arrow keys, and the Okay and Cancel buttons can be chosen by using the left and right arrow keys. Alternatively, each option has a corresponding key, which is highlighted in the option name. Options which are aggable (those indicated with a [X]) are toggled using the spacebar. Of course, all of that is described in the help section of giving our readers their moneys worth.
setup,
but we believe in
25
HELP
If this is your rst time installing Slackware, you might want to take a look at the help screen. It will give a description of each part of setup (much like the one were writing now, but less involved) and instructions for navigating the rest of the install.
Slackware Setup Help Slackware Linux Help ____________________

First, a little help on help. Whenever you encounter a text viewer like this during the installation, you can move around with these commands:
PGDN/SPACE PGUP/b ENTER/DOWN/j UP/k LEFT/h RIGHT/l 0 HOME/g END/G /
- Move down one page - Move up one page - Move down one line - Move up one line - Scroll left - Scroll right - Move to beginning of line - Move to beginning of file - Move to end of file - Forward search
( 6%)
< OK >
KEYMAP
If you require a keymap other than the United States qwerty layout, you may want to take a look at this section. It offers a number of alternate layouts for your keyboarding enjoyment.
26
KEYBOARD MAP SELECTION
You may select one of the following keyboard maps. If you do not select a keyboard map, us.map (the US keyboard map) is the default. Use the UP/DOWN arrow keys and PageUp/PageDown to scroll through the whole list of choices.
qwerty/us.map azerty/azerty.map azerty/be-latin1.map azerty/fr-latin1.map azerty/fr-latin9.map azerty/fr-pc.map azerty/fr.map azerty/wangbe.map azerty/wangbe2.map dvorak/ANSI-dvorak.map dvorak/dvorak-l.map
< OK > < Cancel >
ADDSWAP
SWAP SPACE DETECTED Slackware Setup has detected a swap partition: Device Boot /dev/hda4 Start 4801 End Blocks 4865 Id System 82 Linux swap
522112+
Do you wish to install this as your swap partition?

< Yes > < No >
If you created a swap partition (back in Section 3.3), this section will allow you to enable it. It will autodetect and display the swap partitions on your hard drive, allowing you to select one to format and enable.
27
TARGET
Select Linux installation partition: Please select a partition from the following list to use for your root (/) Linux partition. /dev/hda2 /dev/hda3 /dev/hda4 ----Linux 5863725 Linux 5863725 Linux 104984775 (done adding partitions, continue with setup) (done adding partitions, continue with setup)
< Select > < Continue >
The target section is where your other (non-swap) partitions are formatted and mapped to lesystem mount points. A list of the partitions on your hard disk will be displayed. For each partition, you will be given the option of whether to format that partition or not. Depending on the kernel used, you can choose between reiserfs (the default), ext3, ext2, jfs, and xfs. Most people use either reiserfs or ext3. In the near future we may see support for reiserfs4 slip in. The rst option in the target section is the selection of a partition on which to install your root ( ) lesystem. After that, you will be able to map other partitions to lesys#%)*s tems as you choose. (For instance, you may want your third partition, say , to be your home lesystem. This is just an example; map the partitions as you see t.)
SOURCE
The source section is where you select the source media from which you are installing Slackware. Currently there are four sources to choose from. These are CDROM, NFS, or a premounted directory.
28
SOURCE MEDIA SELECTION
Please select the media from which to install Slackware Linux: 1 2 3 4 Install from a Slackware CD or DVD Install from a hard drive partition Install from NFS (Network File System) Install from a pre-mounted directory
< OK > < Cancel >
The CD-ROM selection enables a CD-ROM based installation. It will offer the option of scanning for a CD-ROM drive or displaying a list from which you can pick your drive type. Make sure you have the Slackware CD in your drive before allowing it to scan. The NFS selection prompts for your network information and the network information for your NFS server. The NFS server must be set up in advance. Also note that you cannot use hostnames, you must use the IP addresses for both your machine and the NFS server (there is no name resolver on the setup disk). Naturally you must .
$ & oppy to add support for your network controller. have used the The premounted directory offers the most exibility. You can use this method to install from things such as Jaz disks, NFS mounts over PLIP, and FAT lesystems. Mount the lesystem to a location of your choosing before running setup, then specify that location here.
SELECT
The select option allows you to select the software series that you wish to install. These series are described in Section 3.2.1. Please note that you must install the A series to have a working base system. All other series are optional.
29
PACKAGE SERIES SELECTION

Now its time to select which general categories of software to install on your system. Use the spacebar to select or unselect the software you wish to install. You can use the up and down arrows to see all the possible choices. Recommended choices have been preselected. Press the ENTER key when you are finished. [X] [X] [X] [X] [X] [X] [X] [X] [ ]
A AP D E F GNOME K KDE KDEI
Base Linux system Various Applications that do not need X Program Development (C, C++, Lisp, Perl, etc.) GNU Emacs FAQ lists, HOWTO documentation The GNOME desktop for X Linux kernel source Qt and the K Desktop Environment for X International language support for KDE
< OK > < Cancel >
INSTALL
Assuming that you have gone through the target, source, and select options, the install option will allow you to select packages from your chosen software series. If not, it will prompt you to go back and complete the other sections of the setup program. This option allows you to select from six different installation methods: full, newbie, menu, expert, custom, and tag path.
30
SELECT PROMPTING MODE

Now you must select the type of prompts youd like to see during the installation process. If you have the drive space, the full option is quick, easy, and by far the most foolproof choice. The newbie mode provides the most information but is much more time-consuming (presenting the packages one by one) than the menu-based choices. Otherwise, you can pick packages from menus using expert or menu mode. Which type of prompting would you like to use? full newbie menu expert custom tagpath help Install everything (almost 2 GB of software) Use verbose prompting (and follow tagfiles) Choose groups of packages from interactive menus Choose individual packages from interactive menus Use custom tagfiles in the package directories Use tagfiles in the subdirectories of a custom path Read the prompt mode help file
< OK > < Cancel >
The full option will install every package from all the software series that you chose in the select section. There is no further prompting. This is the easiest installation method, since you do not need to make any decisions on the actual packages to install. Of course, this option also takes up the most hard drive space. The next option is newbie. This option installs all of the required packages in the selected series. For all other packages, it offers a prompt where you can select Yes, No, or Skip. Yes and No do the obvious, while Skip will go ahead to the next software series. Additionally, you will see a description and size requirement for each package to help you decide if you need it. We recommend this option for new users, as it ensures that you get all the required packages installed. However, it is a little slow because of the prompting. is a faster and more advanced version of the newbie option. For each series, a menu is displayed, from which you can select all the non-required packages you want to install. Required packages are not displayed on this menu.
Menu
For the more advanced user, install offers the expert option. This allows you complete control over what packages get installed. You can deselect packages that are
31
Chapter 3 Installation absolutely required, resulting in a broken system. On the other hand, you can control exactly what goes onto your system. Simply select the packages from each series that you want installed. This is not recommended for the new user, as it is quite easy to shoot yourself in the foot. The custom and tag path options are also for advanced users. These options allow you to install based upon custom tag les that you created in the distribution tree. This is useful for installing to large numbers of machines fairly quickly. For more information on using tag les, see Section 18.4. After selecting your installation method, one of a few things will happen. If you selected full or menu, a menu screen will appear, allowing you to select the packages to be installed. If you selected full, packages will immediately start getting installed to the target. If you selected newbie, packages will be installed until an optional package is reached. Note that it is possible to run out of space while installing. If you selected too many packages for the amount of free space on the target device, you will have problems. The safest thing to do is to select some software and add more later, if you need it. This can easily be done using Slackwares package management tools. For this information, see Chapter 18.
CONFIGURE
The congure section allows you to do some basic system conguration, now that the packages have been installed. What you see here depends in large part upon which software you have installed. You will, however, always see the following: Kernel selection Here you will be asked to select a kernel to install. You can install the kernel from the boot disk you used to install, the Slackware CD-ROM, or from another oppy which you (always thinking ahead) have prepared. Or you can elect to skip, in which case the default kernel will be installed and play will continue to the dealers left.
32
INSTALL LINUX KERNEL
In order for your system to boot correctly, a kernel must be installed. If youve made it this far using the installation bootdisks kernel, you should probably install it as your system kernel (/boot/vmlinuz). If youre sure you know what youre doing, you can also install your choice of kernels from the Slackware CD, or a kernel from a floppy disk. You can also skip this menu, using whatever kernel has been installed already (such as a generic kernel from the A series). Which option would you like? bootdisk cdrom floppy skip Use the kernel from the installation bootdisk Use a kernel from the Slackware CD Install a zimage or bzimage from a DOS floppy Skip this menu (use the default /boot/vmlinuz)
< OK > < Cancel >
Make a boot disk Making a boot disk for future use is probably a good idea. You will have the option of formatting a oppy and then creating one of two types of boot disk. The rst type, simple, simply (go gure) writes a kernel to the oppy. A more exible (and highly recommended) option is lilo, which will of course create a lilo boot disk. See LILO in Section 7.1 for more information. Of course, you may also choose to simply continue, in which case no boot disk will be made.
33
MAKE BOOTDISK It is highly recommended that you make a bootdisk (or two) for your system at this time. There are two types of bootdisks that you can make: a simple bootdisk (which is just a kernel image written directly to disk) or a LILO bootdisk (which is more flexible, but takes a little longer to load). Which option would you like? format simple lilo continue format floppy disk in /dev/fd0 make simple vmlinuz > /dev/fd0 bootdisk make lilo bootdisk leave bootdisk menu and continue with the configuration
< OK > < Cancel >
Modem You will be prompted for modem information. More specically, you will be asked whether you have a modem, and if so, what serial port it is on.
34
MODEM CONFIGURATION This part of the configuration process will create a /dev/modem link pointing to the callout device (ttyS0, ttyS1, ttyS2, ttyS3) representing your default modem. You can change this link later if you move your modem to a different port. If your modem is a PCI card, it will probably use /dev/ttyS4 or higher. Please select the callout device which you would like to use for your modem: no modem do not set a /dev/modem link /dev/ttyS0 (COM1: under DOS) /dev/ttyS1 (COM2: under DOS) /dev/ttyS2 (COM3: under DOS) /dev/ttyS3 (COM4: under DOS) /dev/ttyS4 PCI modem /dev/ttyS5 PCI modem /dev/ttyS6 PCI modem /dev/ttyS7 PCI modem
< OK > < Cancel >
These next conguration subsections may or may not appear, depending on whether or not you installed their corresponding packages.
Timezone This ones pretty straightforward: you will be asked what time zone you are in. If you operate on Zulu time, we are very sorry; the (extremely long) list is alphabetically ordered, and youre at the bottom.
35
TIMEZONE CONFIGURATION Please select one of the following timezones for your machine: US/Alaska US/Aleutian US/Arizona US/Central US/East-Indiana US/Eastern US/Hawaii US/Indiana-Starke US/Michigan US/Mountain US/Pacific US/Samoa Africa/Abidjan
< OK > < Cancel >
Mouse This subsection simply asks what kind of mouse you have, and whether you want gpm(8) console mouse support enabled on bootup.
36
MOUSE CONFIGURATION
This part of the configuration process will create a /dev/mouse link pointing to your default mouse device. You can change the /dev/mouse link later if the mouse doesnt work, or if you switch to a different type of pointing device. We will also use the information about the mouse to set the correct protocol for gpm, the Linux mouse server. Please select a mouse type from the list below: ps2 imps2 bare ms mman msc pnp usb PS/2 port mouse (most desktops and laptops) Microsoft PS/2 Intellimouse 2 button Microsoft compatible serial mouse 3 button Microsoft compatible serial mouse Logitech serial MouseMan and similar devices MouseSystems serial (most 3 button serial mice) Plug and Play (serial mice that do not work with ms) USB connected mouse
< OK > < Cancel >
Hardware clock This subsection asks if your computers hardware clock is set to Coordinated Universal Time (UTC or GMT). Most PCs are not, so you should probably say no.
HARDWARE CLOCK SET TO UTC? Is the hardware clock set to Coordinated Universal Time (UTC/GMT)? If it is, select YES here. If the hardware clock is set to the current local time (this is how most PCs are set up), then say NO here. If you are not sure what this is, you should answer NO here. NO Hardware clock is set to local time YES Hardware clock is set to UTC
< OK > < Cancel >
37
Chapter 3 Installation Font The font subsection allows you to choose from a list of custom console fonts.
SELECT A SCREEN FONT Select one of the following custom fonts. If you decide you like it, you can make it your new default screen font. Youll be able to try as many of these as you like. 161.cp.gz -16 162.cp.gz -16 163.cp.gz -16 164.cp.gz -16 165.cp.gz -16 737.cp.gz -16 880.cp.gz -16 928.cp.gz -16 972.cp.gz -16 Agafari-12.psfu.gz Agafari-14.psfu.gz Agafari-16.psfu.gz
< OK > < Cancel >
LILO Here you are prompted for installation of LILO (the LInux LOader; see Section 7.1 for more information).
38
INSTALL LILO LILO (Linux Loader) is a generic boot loader. Theres a simple installation which tries to automatically set up LILO to boot Linux (also DOS/Windows if found). For more advanced users, the expert option offers more control over the installation process. Since LILO does not work in all cases (and can damage partitions if incorrectly installed), theres the third (safe) option, which is to skip installing LILO for now. You can always install it later with the liloconfig command. Which option would you like? simple Try to install LILO automatically expert Use expert lilo.conf setup menu skip Do not install LILO
< OK > < Cancel >
If Slackware is to be the only operating system on your computer, simple should work just ne for you. If you are dual-booting, the expert option is a better choice. See Section 7.3 for more information on dual-booting. The third option, do not install, is not recommended unless you know what youre doing and have a very good reason for not installing LILO. If you are performing an expert install, you will be given a choice as to where LILO will be put. You may place LILO in the MBR (Master Boot Record) of your hard drive, in the superblock of your root Linux partition, or on a oppy disk.
Network The network conguration subsection is actually more information.

netconfig.
See Section 5.1 for
39
Chapter 3 Installation X Window Manager This subsection will allow you to choose a default window manager for X. See Chapter 6 for more details on X and window managers.
SELECT DEFAULT WINDOW MANAGER FOR X
Please select the default window manager to use with the X Window System. This will define the style of graphical user interface the computer uses. KDE and GNOME provide the most features. People with Windows or MacOS experience will find either one easy to use. Other window managers are easier on system resources, or provide other unique features. xinitrc.kde xinitrc.gnome xinitrc.xfce xinitrc.blackbox xinitrc.fluxbox xinitrc.wmaker xinitrc.fvwm2 xinitrc.fvwm95 xinitrc.twm KDE: K Desktop Environment GNU Network Object Model Environment The Cholesterol Free Desktop Environment The blackbox window manager The fluxbox window manager WindowMaker F(?) Virtual Window Manager (version 2.xx) FVWM2 with a Windows look and feel Tab Window Manager (very basic)
< OK > < Cancel >
No matter which packages you installed, the last thing congure will do is ask you whether you want to go ahead and set a root password. For security reasons, this is probably a good idea; however, like almost everything else in Slackware, this is your call.
40
Chapter 4
System Conguration
Before you can congure the more advanced parts of your system, its a good idea to learn how the system is organized and what commands can be used to search for les and programs. Its also good to know if you need to compile a custom kernel and what the steps for doing that are. This chapter will familiarize you with system organization and conguration les. Then, you can move on to conguring the more advanced parts of the system.
4.1 System Overview

Its important to understand how a Linux system is put together before diving into the various conguration aspects. A Linux system is signicantly different from a DOS, Windows, or Macintosh system (with the exception of the Unix-based Mac OS X), but these sections will help you get acquainted with the layout so that you can easily congure your system to meet your needs.
File System Layout

The rst noticeable difference between Slackware Linux and a DOS or Windows system is the lesystem. For starters, we do not use drive letters to denote different partitions. Under Linux, there is one main directory. You can relate this to the C: drive under DOS. Each partition on your system is mounted to a directory on the main directory. Its kind of like an ever-expanding hard disk.
41
Chapter 4 System Conguration We call the main directory the root directory, and its denoted with a single slash ( ). This concept may seem strange, but it actually makes life easy for you when you want to add more space. For example, lets say you run out of space on the drive that %
- on it. Most people install Slackware and make one big root drive. Well, has since a partition can be mounted to any directory, you can simply go to the store and %
pick up a new hard drive and mount it to - . Youve now grafted on some more space to your system. And all without having to move many things around. Below, you will nd descriptions of the major top level directories under Slackware.
+
Essential user programs are stored here. These represent the bare minimum set of programs required for a user to use the system. Things like the shell and the + lesystem commands (ls, cp, and so on) are stored here. The directory usually doesnt receive modication after installation. If it does, its usually in the form of package upgrades that we provide.
+

Files that are used by the Linux Loader (LILO). This directory also receives little modication after an installation. The kernel is stored here as of Slackware 8.1. In earlier releases of Slackware, the kernel was simply stored under , but common practice is to put the kernel and related les here to facilitate dualbooting.
#
Everything in Linux is treated as a le, even hardware devices like serial ports, hard disks, and scanners. In order to access these devices, a special le called a # device node has to be present. All device nodes are stored in the directory. You will nd this to be true across many Unix-like operating systems.

This directory holds system conguration les. Everything from the X Window
42
Chapter 4 System Conguration conguration le, the user database, to the system startup scripts. The system administrator will become quite familiar with this directory over time.
%

Linux is a multiuser operating system. Each user on the system is given an account and a unique directory for personal les. This directory is called the %
users home directory. The - directory is provided as the default location for user home directories.
+
System libraries that are required for basic operation are stored here. The C library, the dynamic loader, the ncurses library, and kernel modules are among the things stored here.

This directory contains temporary mount points for working on hard disks or removable drives. Here youll nd mount points for your CD-ROM and oppy drives.
(
Optional software packages. The idea behind is that each software package )
()
".'* ( * *9 : installs to , which makes it easy to remove later. Slack
()
()) ware distributes some things in (such as KDE in ), but you are free
( to add anything you want to .
()

)
(
This is a unique directory. Its not really part of the lesystem, but a virtual lesystem that provides access to kernel information. Various pieces of information that the kernel wants you to know are conveyed to you through les in (
the directory. You can also send information to the kernel through some of these les. Try doing cat /proc/cpuinfo.
43
Chapter 4 System Conguration

The system administrator is known as root on the system. roots home direc

%

%
tory is kept in instead of . The reason is simple. What if was a different partition from and it could not be mounted? root would naturally want to log in and repair the problem. If his home directory was on the damaged lesystem, it would make it difcult for him to log in.
&+
Essential programs that are run by root and during the system bootup process are kept here. Normal users will not run programs in this directory.
(
The temporary storage location. All users have read and write access to this directory.
This is the big directory on a Linux system. Everything else pretty much goes here, programs, documentation, the kernel source code, and the X Window system. This is the directory to which you will most likely be installing programs.
# *
System log les, cache data, and program lock les are stored here. This is the directory for frequently-changing data. You should now have a good feel for which directories contain what on the lesystem. More detailed information about the lesystem layout is available in the hier(7) man page. The next section will help you nd specic les easily, so you dont have to do it by hand.
Finding Files
You now know what each major directory holds, but it still doesnt really help you
44
Chapter 4 System Conguration nd things. I mean, you could go looking through directories, but there are quicker ways. There are four main le search commands available in Slackware. which The rst is the which(1) command. which is usually used to locate a program quickly. It just searches your PATH and returns the rst instance it nds and the directory path to it. Take this example:
which bash /bin/bash
%
From that you see that bash is in the directory. This is a very limited command for searching, since it only searches your PATH.
+
whereis The whereis(1) command works similar to which, but can also search for man pages and source les. A whereis search for bash should return this:
whereis bash bash: /bin/bash /usr/bin/bash /usr/man/man1/bash.1.gz
%
This command not only told us where the actual program is located, but also where the online documentation is stored. Still, this command is limited. What if you wanted to search for a specic conguration le? You cant use which or whereis for that.
nd The find(1) command allows the user to search the lesystem with a rich collection of search predicates. Users may specify a search with lename wildcards, ranges of modication or creation times, or other advanced properties. For example, to search = for the default le on the system, the following command could be used.
45
% find / -name xinitrc /var/X11R6/lib/xinit/xinitrc
find
will take a while to run, since it has to traverse the entire root directory tree. And if this command is run as a normal user, there will be permission denied error messages for directories that only root can see. But find found our le, so thats good. If only it could be a bit faster...
slocate The slocate(1) command searches the entire lesystem, just like the nd command can do, but it searches a database instead of the actual lesystem. The database is set to automatically update every morning, so you have a somewhat fresh listing of les on your system. You can manually run updatedb(1) to update the slocate database (before running updatedb by hand, you must rst su to the root user). Heres an example of slocate in action:
slocate xinitrc # we dont have to go to the root /var/X11R6/lib/xinit/xinitrc /var/X11R6/lib/xinit/xinitrc.fvwm2 /var/X11R6/lib/xinit/xinitrc.openwin /var/X11R6/lib/xinit/xinitrc.twm
%
We got more than what we were looking for, and quickly too. With these commands, you should be able to nd whatever youre looking for on your Linux system.
The
/GRF26V/3b6fN4
Directory
)
The system initialization les are stored in the directory. Slackware uses the BSD-style layout for its initialization les as opposed to System V init scripts, which tend to make conguration changes much more difcult without using a program specically designed for that purpose. In BSD-init scripts, each runlevel is given a single rc le. In System V, each runlevel is given its own directory, each
46
Chapter 4 System Conguration containing numerous init scripts. This provides an organized structure that is easy to maintain. There are several categories of initialization les. These are system startup, runlevels, network initialization, and System V compatibility. As per tradition, well lump everything else into another category. System Startup The rst program to run under Slackware besides the Linux kernel is init(8). This ) *+ (5) le to see how to run the system. It runs the program reads the )ut script to prepare the system before going into your desired runlevel. ot The le enables your virtual memory, mounts your lesystems, cleans up certain log directories, initializes Plug and Play devices, loads kernel modules, congures PCMCIA devices, sets up serial ports, and runs System V init scripts (if found). ut ut has a lot on its plate, but here are some scripts in that Obviously will call on to complete its work:
ut
This is the actual system initialization script.

) -
Loads kernel modules. Things like your network card, PPP support, and other v # things are loaded here. If this script nds , it will run that as well.
( *
Probes for and congures any PCMCIA devices that you might have on your system. This is most useful for laptop users, who probably have a PCMCIA modem or network card.
!*)
Congures your serial ports by running the appropriate setserial commands.
47

!w'&#
Looks for System V init scripts for the desired runlevel and runs them. This is discussed in more detail below.
Runlevel Initialization Scripts After system initialization is complete, init moves on to runlevel initialization. A runlevel describes the state that your machine will be running in. Sound redundant? Well, the runlevel tells init if you will be accepting multiuser logins or just a single user, whether or not you want network services, and if you will be using the X Window System or agetty(8) to handle logins. The les below dene the different runlevels in Slackware Linux.
op
Halt the system (runlevel 0). By default, this is symlinked to

y
ux
Multiuser startup (runlevel 4), but in X11 with KDM, GDM, or XDM as the login manager.
ux
Reboot the system (runlevel 6).

z
Startup in single user mode (runlevel 1).

,
Multiuser mode (runlevels 2 and 3), but with the standard text-based login. This is the default runlevel in Slackware.
48
Chapter 4 System Conguration Network Initialization Runlevels 2, 3, and 4 will start up the network services. The following les are responsible for the network initialization:

Created by netconfig, this le is responsible for conguring the actual network interface.
n
Runs after
u**)

and starts up basic network services.
Starts up AppleTalk services.

%)()
Starts up the Apache web server. Like a few other rc scripts, this one can also v%)( be used to stop and restart a service. takes arguments of stop, start, or restart.
&.
Starts up the news server.
System V Compatibility System V init compatibility was introduced in Slackware 7.0. Many other Linux distributions make use of this style instead of the BSD style. Basically each runlevel is given a subdirectory for init scripts, whereas BSD style gives one init script to each runlevel. The script will search for any System V init scripts you have in and run them, if the runlevel is appropriate. This is useful for certain commercial
!w'&#
49
Chapter 4 System Conguration software packages that install System V init scripts
Other Files The scripts described below are the other system initialization scripts. They are typically run from one of the major scripts above, so all you need to do is edit the contents.
9( -
Starts up general purpose mouse services. Allows you to copy and paste at the Linux console. Occasionally, gpm will cause problems with the mouse when it is used under X windows. If you experience problems with the mouse under X, try taking away the executable permission from this le and stopping the gpm server.
"
)
Loads the custom screen font for the console.

u
*
Contains any specic startup commands for your system. This is empty after a fresh install, as it is reserved for local administrators. This script is run after all other initialization has taken place. To enable a script, all you need to do is add the execute permissions to it with the chmod command. To disable a script, remove the execute permissions from it. For more information about chmod, see Section 9.2.
4.2 Selecting a Kernel

The kernel is the part of the operating system that provides hardware access, process
50
Chapter 4 System Conguration control, and overall system control. The kernel contains support for your hardware devices, so picking one for your system is an important setup step. Slackware provides more than a dozen precompiled kernels that you can pick from, each with a standard set of drivers and additional specic drivers. You can run one of the precompiled kernels or you can build your own kernel from source. Either way, you need to make sure that your kernel has the hardware support your system needs.
The
/ \QR3V_bRITG1
Directory on the Slackware CD-ROM

The precompiled Slackware kernels are available in the directory on the Slackware CD-ROM or on the FTP site in the main Slackware directory. The available kernels change as new releases are made, so the documentation in that directory )) directory has subdirectories for each is always the authoritative source. The kernel available. The subdirectories have the same name as their accompanying boot disk. In each subdirectory you will nd the following les: File
tw'& +{'q

"'9
* ( - *9
Purpose The system map le for this kernel The actual kernel image The source conguration le for this kernel
tw *(
)"'&9 +

and les to your directory and copy To use a kernel, copy the - +
)
# { the kernel image to . Run /sbin/lilo(8) to install LILO for the new kernel, and then reboot your system. Thats all there is to installing a new kernel. The kernels that end with a .i are IDE kernels. That is, they include no SCSI support in the base kernel. The kernels that end with .s are SCSI kernels. They include all the IDE support in .i kernels, plus SCSI support.
Compiling a Kernel from Source

The question Should I compile a kernel for my system? is often asked by new
51
Chapter 4 System Conguration users. The answer is a denite maybe. There are few instances where you will need to compile a kernel specic to your system. Most users can use a precompiled kernel and the loadable kernel modules to achieve a fully working system. You will want to compile a kernel for your system if you are upgrading kernel versions to one that we do not currently offer in Slackware, or if you have patched the kernel source to get special device support that is not in the native kernel source. Anyone with an SMP system will denitely want to compile a kernel with SMP support. Also, many users nd a custom compiled kernel runs much faster on their machine. You may nd it useful to compile the kernel with optimizations for the specic processor in your machine. Building your own kernel is not that hard. The rst step is to make sure you have the kernel source installed on your system. Make sure that you installed the packages from the K series during the installation. You will also want to make sure you have the D series installed, specically the C compiler, GNU make, and GNU binutils. In general, its a good idea to have the entire D series installed if you plan on doing any kind of development. You can also download the latest kernel source from EGFIFGHKJ/G/MLGLGLONd\UR3V_bRITfN53Vcb/Y|^M3G3$53$1 . Linux Kernel version 2.4.x Compilation
% su Password: # cd /usr/src/linux
The rst step is to bring the kernel source into its base state. We issue this command !
)"9 to do that (note, you may wish to back-up the le as this command will delete it without warning):
#
make mrproper
Now you can congure the kernel for your system. The current kernel offers three ways of doing this. The rst is the original text-based question and answer system. It asks a bunch of questions and then builds a conguration le. The problem with this method is that if you mess up, you must start over. The method that most people
52
Chapter 4 System Conguration prefer is the menu driven one. Lastly, there is an X-based kernel conguration tool. Pick the one you want and issue the appropriate command:
make config # make menuconfig # make xconfig
#
(text-based Q&A version) (menu driven, text-based version) (X-based version, make sure you are in X first)
Figure 4-1. Kernel Conguration Menu

Linux Kernel v2.2.16 Configuration Main Menu
Arrow keys navigate the menu. <Enter> selects submenus --->. Highlighted letters and hotkeys. Pressing <Y> includes, <N> excludes, <M> modularizes features. Press <Esc><Esc> to exit, <?> for help Legend: [ * ] built-in [ ] excluded <M> module < > module capable Code maturity level options ---> Processor type and features ---> Loadable module support ---> General setup ---> Plug and Play support ---> Block devices ---> Networking options ---> Telephony Support ---> SCSI support ---> Network device support ---> Amateur Radio support --->
< Select > < Exit > < Help >
New users will probably nd menuconfig to be the easiest to use. Help screens are provided that explain the various parts of the kernel. After conguring your kernel, exit the conguration program. It will write the necessary conguration les. Now we can prepare the source tree for a build:
#
make dep # make clean
53
Chapter 4 System Conguration The next step is to compile the kernel. First try issuing the bzImage command below.
#
make bzImage
This may take a while, depending on your CPU speed. During the build process, you will see the compiler messages. After building the kernel image, you will want to build any parts of the kernel that you agged as modular.
#
make modules
We can now install the kernel and modules that you compiled. To install the kernel on a Slackware system, these commands should be issued:
# #
mv /boot/vmlinuz /boot/vmlinuz.old cat arch/i386/boot/bzImage > /vmlinuz # mv /boot/System.map /boot/System.map.old # cp System.map /boot/System.map # make modules_install
You will want to edit and add a section to boot your old kernel in case your new one does not work. After doing that, run /sbin/lilo to install the new boot block. You can now reboot with your new kernel.
) )
S
"
Linux Kernel Version 2.6.x The compilation of a 2.6 kernel is only slightly different from a 2.4 or a 2.2 kernel, but it is important that you understand the differences before delving in. Its no longer necessary to run make dep and make clean. Also, the kernel compilation process is not as verbose in the 2.6 kernel series. This results in a build process that is easier to understand, but has some short comings as well. If you have trouble building the kernel, its highly recommended that you turn verbosity back up. You do this simply by appending V=1 to the build. This allows you to log more information that could help a kernel developer or other friendly geek aid you in resolving the issue.
#
make bzImage V=1
54
Using Kernel Modules

Kernel modules are another name for device drivers that can be inserted into a running kernel. They allow you to extend the hardware supported by your kernel without needing to pick another kernel or compile one yourself. Modules can also be loaded and unloaded at any time, even when the system is running. This makes upgrading specic drivers easy for system administrators. A new module can be compiled, the old one removed, and the new one loaded, all without rebooting the machine.
Modules are stored in the directory on your system. They
) can be loaded at boot time through the le. This le is very well commented and offers examples for major hardware components. To see a list of modules that are currently active, use the lsmod(1) command: )+
)# )

lsmod Module parport_pc parport

#
Size 7220 7844
Used by 0 0 [parport_pc]
You can see here that I only have the parallel port module loaded. To remove a module, you use the rmmod(1) command. Modules can be loaded by the modprobe(1) or insmod(1) command. modprobe is usually safer because it will load any modules that the one youre trying to load depends on. A lot of users never have to load or unload modules by hand. They use the kernel autoloader for module management. By default, Slackware includes kmod in its kernels. kmod is a kernel option that enables the kernel to automatically load modules as they are requested. For more information on kmod and how it is congured, see '&& )=
)*

I=) . Youll have needed to have the kernel source k package, or downloaded kernel source from EGFGFIHKJ/G/ \bR3V_URITXN53c . More information can be found in the man pages for each of these commands, plus
the le.
55
56
Chapter 5
Network Conguration
5.1 Introduction: netcong is your friend.
When you initially installed Slackware, the setup program invoked the netconfig program. netconfig attempted to perform the following functions for you:
It asked you for the name of your computer, and the domain name for your computer. It gave a brief explanation of the various types of addressing schemes, told when they should be used, and asked you which IP addressing scheme you wished to use to congure your network card:

Static-IP DHCP Loopback
It then offered to probe for a network card to congure.
will generally take care of about 80% of the work of conguring your LAN network connection if you will let it. Note that I would strongly suggest that you review your cong le for a couple of reasons:
netconfig
1. You should never trust a setup program to properly congure your computer. If you use a setup program, you should review the conguration yourself.
57
Chapter 5 Network Conguration 2. If you are still learning Slackware and Linux system management, viewing a working conguration can be helpful. Youll at least know what the conguration should look like. This will allow you to correct problems due to misconguration of the system at a later date.
5.2 Network Hardware Conguration

Having decided that you wish to bring your Slackware machine on to some form of network, the rst thing youll need is a Linux-compatible network card. You will need to take a little care to ensure that the card is truly Linux-compatible (please refer to the Linux Documentation Project and/or the kernel documentation for information on the current status of your proposed network card). As a general rule, you will most likely be pleasantly surprised by the number of networking cards that are supported under the more modern kernels. Having said that, Id still suggest referring to any of the various Linux hardware compatibility lists (such as The GNU/Linux Beginners Group Hardware Compatibility Links1 and The Linux Documentation Project Hardware HOWTO2) that are available on the Internet before purchasing your card. A little extra time spent in research can save days or even weeks trying to troubleshoot a card that isnt compatible with Linux at all. When you visit the Linux Hardware Compatibility lists available on the Internet, or when you refer to the kernel documentation installed on your machine, it would be wise to note which kernel module youll need to use to support your network card.
Loading Network Modules

le Kernel modules that are to be loaded on boot-up are loaded from the )v%
( 9 in or by the kernels auto module loading started by .
) le includes a Network device support section. If you open The default
) and look for that section, youll notice that it rst checks for an executable 1 http://www.eskimo.com/%7Elo/linux/hardwarelinks.html 2 http://www.linux.org/docs/ldp/howto/Hardware-HOWTO/

)
58
Chapter 5 Network Conguration le in . This script is created if setup successfully autoprobes your network device during installation. Below that if block is a list of network devices and modprobe lines, each commented out. Find your device and uncomment the corresponding modprobe line,
) as root should now load your network device then save the le. Running driver (as well as any other modules that are listed and uncommented). Note that some modules (such as the ne2000 driver) require parameters; make sure you select the correct line.
#) )
LAN (10/100/1000Base-T and Base-2) cards

This heading encompasses all of the internal PCI and ISA networking cards. Drivers for these cards are provided via loadable kernel modules as covered in the previous &+
)"'&9 should have probed for your card and successfully set paragraph. )#) up your le. If this did not occur, the most likely problem would be that the module that youre attempting to load for a given card is incorrect (it is not unheard of for different generations of the same brand of card from the same manufacturer to require different modules). If you are certain that the module that youre attempting to load is the correct one, your next best bet would be to refer to the documentation for the module in an attempt to discover whether or not specic parameters are required during when the module is initialized.
Modems
Like LAN cards, modems can come with various bus support options. Until recently, most modems were 8 or 16 bit ISA cards. With the efforts of Intel and motherboard manufacturers everywhere to nally kill off the ISA bus completely, it is common now to nd that most modems are either external modems that connect to a serial or USB port or are internal PCI modems. If you wish for your modem to work with Linux, it is VITALLY important to research your prospective modem purchase, particularly if you are considering purchasing a PCI modem. Many, if not most,
59
Chapter 5 Network Conguration PCI modems available on store shelves these days are WinModems. WinModems lack some basic hardware on the modem card itself: the functions performed by this hardware are typically ofoaded onto the CPU by the modem driver and the Windows operating system. This means that they do not have the standard serial interface that PPPD will be expecting to see when you try to dial out to your Internet Service Provider. If you want to be absolutely sure that the modem youre purchasing will work with Linux, purchase an external hardware modem that connects to the serial port on your PC. These are guaranteed to work better and be less trouble to install and maintain, though they require external power and tend to cost more. There are several web sites that provide drivers and assistance for conguring WinModem based devices. Some users have reported success conguring and installing drivers for the various winmodems, including Lucent, Conexant, and Rockwell chipsets. As the required software for these devices is not an included part of Slackware, and varies from driver to driver, we will not go into detail on them.
PCMCIA
As part of your Slackware install, you are given the opportunity to install the pcmcia package (in the A series of packages). This package contains the applications and setup les required to work with PCMCIA cards under Slackware. It is important to note that the pcmcia package only installs the generic software required to work with PCMCIA cards under Slackware. It does NOT install any drivers or modules. The )+
}m * V}~( )* - : directory. available modules and drivers will be in the You may need to do some experimentation to nd a module that will work with your network card. You will need to edit (for an Ethernet card) or . Vo
(' (if you have a wireless networking card). Like most Slackware conguration les, these two les are very well commented and it should be easy to determine which modications need to be made.
)( *.
$o
()' )( *
60
Chapter 5 Network Conguration
5.3 TCP/IP Conguration

At this point, your network card should be physically installed in your computer, and the relevant kernel modules should be loaded. You will not yet be able to communicate over your network card, but information about the network device can be obtained with ifconfig -a.
ifconfig -a eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:A0:CC:3C:60:A4 UP BROADCAST NOTRAILERS RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1 RX packets:110081 errors:1 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0 TX packets:84931 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0 collisions:0 txqueuelen:100 RX bytes:114824506 (109.5 Mb) TX bytes:9337924 (8.9 Mb) Interrupt:5 Base address:0x8400
#
lo Link encap:Local Loopback inet addr:127.0.0.1 Mask:255.0.0.0 UP LOOPBACK RUNNING MTU:16436 Metric:1 RX packets:2234 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0 TX packets:2234 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0 collisions:0 txqueuelen:0 RX bytes:168758 (164.8 Kb) TX bytes:168758 (164.8 Kb)
If you just typed /sbin/ifconfig without the -a sufx, you would not see the interface, as your network card does not yet have a valid IP address or route.
%p
While there are many different ways to setup and subnet a network, all of them can be broken down into two types: Static and Dynamic. Static networks are setup such that each node (geek lingo for thing with an IP address) always has the same IP address. Dynamic networks are setup in such a way that the IP addresses for the nodes are controlled by a single server called the DHCP server.
DHCP
DHCP (or Dynamic Host Conguration Protocol), is a means by which an IP address may be assigned to a computer on boot. When the DHCP client boots, it puts out
61
Chapter 5 Network Conguration a request on the Local Area Network for a DHCP server to assign it an IP address. The DHCP server has a pool (or scope) of IP addresses available. The server will respond to this request with an IP address from the pool, along with a lease time. Once the lease time for a given IP address lease has expired, the client must contact the server again and repeat the negotiation. The client will then accept the IP address from the server and will congure the requested interface with the IP address. There is one more handy trick that DHCP clients use for negotiating the IP address that they will be assigned, however. The client will remember its last assigned IP address, and will request that the server re-assign that IP address to the client again upon next negotiation. If possible, the server will do so, but if not, a new address is assigned. So, the negotiation resembles the following: Client: Is there a DHCP server available on the LAN? Server: Yes, there is. Here I am. Client: I need an IP address. Server: You may take 192.168.10.10 for 19200 seconds. Client: Thank you. Client: Is there a DHCP server available on the LAN? Server:Yes, there is. Here I am. Client:I need an IP address. The last time we talked, I had 192.168.10.10; May I have it again? Server:Yes, you may (or No, you may not: take 192.168.10.12 instead). Client: Thank you. in your The DHCP client in Linux is /sbin/dhcpcd. If you load favorite text editor, you will notice that /sbin/dhcpcd is called about midway through the script. This will force the conversation shown above. dhcpcd will also track the amount of time left on the lease for the current IP address, and will automatically contact the DHCP server with a request to renew the lease when
!
62
Chapter 5 Network Conguration necessary. DHCP can also control related information, such as what ntp server to use, what route to take, etc. Setting up DHCP on Slackware is simple. Just run netconfig and select DHCP )%p to be congured when offered. If you have more than one NIC and do not wish ) !
" by DHCP, just edit the le and change the related variable for your NIC to YES.
Static IP
Static IP addresses are xed addresses that only change if manually told to. These are used in any case where an administrator doesnt want the IP information to change, such for internal servers on a LAN, any server connected to the Internet, and networked routers. With static IP addressing, you assign an address and leave it at that. Other machines know that you are always at that certain IP address and can contact you at that address always.
g
/GRF26V/3b6fN4$/3b6N^Z_bR FN6V5 _
If you plan on assigning an IP address to your new Slackware box, you may do
)"'&9 !
)" so either through the script, or you may edit . In ) ZM!
" , you will notice:
# Primary network interface card (eth0) IPADDR[0]="" NETMASK[0]="" USE_DHCP[0]="" DHCP_HOSTNAME[0]=""
Then further at the bottom:

GATEWAY=""
63
Chapter 5 Network Conguration In this case, our task is merely to place the correct information between the double! quotes. These variables are called by at boot time to setup the nics. For each NIC, just enter the correct IP information, or put YES for USE_DHCP. Slackware will startup the interfaces with the information placed here in the order they are found. The DEFAULT_GW variable sets up the default route for Slackware. All communications between your computer and other computers on the Internet must pass through that gateway if no other route is specied for them. If you are using DHCP, you will usually not need to enter anything here, as the DHCP server will specify what gateway to use.
g
/GRF26V/3$RI1S5ITMKN6V5 _
Ok, so youve got an IP address, youve got a default gateway, you may even have ten million dollars (give us some), but what good is that if you cant resolve names nSoGonsy7&n into their web browser to to IP addresses? No one wants to type in ..).$!)*)+
)
$o
9 reach . After all, who other than the authors would memorize that
)#$!
)" IP address? We need to setup DNS, but how? Thats where comes into play. Chances are you already have the proper options in . If you setup your network connection using DHCP, the DHCP server should handle updating this le for you. (Technically the DHCP server just tells dhcpcd what to put here, and it obeys.) If you need to manually update your DNS server list though, youll need to )
#7
" hand edit . Below is an example:
cat /etc/resolv.conf nameserver 192.168.1.254 search lizella.net
#

#7
)"
The rst line is simple. The nameserver directive tells us what DNS servers to query. By necessity these are always IP addresses. You may have as many listed there as you like. Slackware will happily check one after the other until one returns a match.
64
Chapter 5 Network Conguration The second line is a little more interesting. The search directive gives us a list of domain names to assume whenever a DNS request is made. This allows you to contact a machine by only the rst part of its FQDN (Fully Qualied Domain Name). For example, if slackware.com were in your search path, you could reach %))( )&
S!)*. *G!
%))( &
r - by just pointing your web browser at r .
# ping -c 1 store PING store.slackware.com (69.50.233.153): 56 data bytes 64 bytes from 69.50.233.153 : icmp_seq=0 ttl=64 time=0.251 ms 1 packets transmitted, 1 packets received, 0% packet loss round-trip min/avg/max = 0.251/0.251/0.251 ms
/GRF26V/ Eb5I1MFQ1
Now that weve got DNS working ne, what if we want to bypass our DNS server, or add a DNS entry for a machine that isnt in DNS? Slackware includes the oft%
' loved le which contains a local list of DNS names and IP addresses they should match to.
cat /etc/hosts 127.0.0.1 192.168.1.101 172.14.66.32
#
localhost locahost.localdomain redtail foobar.slackware.com

&n pIpGm
Here you can see that localhost has an IP address of &nG&xGmMmp for localhost), redtail can be reached at , and nG~y7ox)xSos)n .
"

+*7l* . * S
(always reserved - is
5.4 PPP
Many people still connect to the Internet through some kind of dialup connection.
65
Chapter 5 Network Conguration The most common method is PPP, though SLIP is still occasionally used. Setting up your system to speak PPP to a remote server is pretty easy. Weve included a few tools to help you in setting it up.
pppsetup
Slackware includes a program called pppsetup to congure your system to use your dialup account. It shares a look and feel similar to our netconfig program. To run the program, make sure you are logged in as root. Then type pppsetup to run it. You should see a screen like this: The program will present a series of questions, to which you will feed it appropriate answers. Things like your modem device, the modem initialization string, and the ISP phone number. Some items will have a default, which you can accept in most cases. After the program runs, it will create a ppp-go program and a ppp-off program. These are used to start and stop, respectively, the PPP connection. The two programs '&+ and need root privileges to run. are located in
/GRF26V/ HGHGH
For most users, running pppsetup will be sufcient. However, there may be an instance where you want to tweak some of the values used by the PPP daemon. All of (()( the conguration information is kept in . Here is a list of what the different les are for:
ip-down ip-up
(

This script is run by pppd after the PPP connection is ended. This script is run by pppd when theres a successful ppp connection. Put any commands you want run after a successful connection in this le. General conguration options for pppd.
66
(
-
*
pppscript
()(()($v)=
General conguration options for pppd when run in demand dialing mode. The commands sent to the modem. A log of what you entered when you ran pppsetup.
Note: Most of these les wont be there until after you run pppsetup.
5.5 Wireless
Wireless networking is still a relatively new thing in the world of computers, yet is quickly catching on as more people begin to purchase laptops and want networking on the go, without having to fool with some old twisted pair cable. This trend doesnt appear to be slowing down. Unfortunately, wireless networking isnt yet as strongly supported in Linux as traditional wired networking. There are three basic steps to conguring an 802.11 wireless Ethernet card: 1. Hardware support for the wireless card 2. Congure the card to connect to a wireless access point 3. Congure the network
Hardware Support
Hardware support for a wireless card is provided through the kernel, either with a module or built in to the kernel. Generally, most newer Ethernet cards are provided through kernel modules, so youll want to determine the appropriate )
kernel module and load it through . netconfig may not detect -
67
Chapter 5 Network Conguration your wireless card, so youll probably need to determine the card yourself. See EGFIFGHKJ/G/MLGLGLONdESHQTXNdEGHN6V5ZY[/MHbR3U1S5 _UWITS/7VRSW _Ub5M073G3Q^VT;EbRI1S/Q^_G0G`b/ for more information on kernel drivers for various wireless cards.
Congure the Wireless Settings

The vast majority of this work is done by iwconfig, so as always read the man page for iwconfig if you need more information. First, youll want to congure your wireless access point. Wireless access points vary quite a bit in their terminology, and how to congure them, so you may need to adjust a bit to accommodate your hardware. In general, youll need at least the following information:

The domain ID, or name of the network (called the ESSID by iwconfig) The channel the WAP uses The encryption settings, including any keys used (preferably in hexadecimal)
Warning: A NOTE ABOUT WEP. WEP is quit awed, but its much better than nothing. If you wish a greater degree of security on your wireless network, you should investigate VPNs or IPSec, both of which are beyond the scope of this document. You might also congure your WAP not to advertise its domain ID/ ESSID. A thorough discussion of wireless policy is beyond the scope of this section, but a quick Google search will turn up more than you ever wanted to know.
Once youve gathered the above information, and assuming youve used modprobe v.))
)" and add your setto load the appropriate kernel driver, you can edit . )V!
" tings. The le is a bit untidy. The least effort is to modify the generic section with your ESSID and KEY, and CHANNEL if required by your card. (Try not setting CHANNEL, and if it works, great; if not, set the CHANNEL as appropri-
68
Chapter 5 Network Conguration ate.) If youre daring, you can modify the le so that only the necessary variables are .)V!
)" set. The variable names in correspond to the iwconfig parameters, . and used in the appropriate iwconfig commands. and are read by If you have your key in hexadecimal, thats ideal, since you can be fairly condent that your WAP and iwconfig will agree on the key. If you only have a string, you cant be sure how your WAP will translate that into a hexadecimal key, so some guesswork may be needed (or get your WAPs key in hex). , run as root, then run , Once youve modied again as root. You can test your wireless networking with standard testing tools such as ping, along with iwconfig. If you have a wired interface you may wish to use ifconfig to turn those interfaces off while you test your wireless networking to ensure theres no interference. You may also want to test your changes through a reboot. for you default network, lets Now that youve seen how to edit take a closer look at iwcong and see how it all works. This will teach you the quick and dirty way of setting up wi for those times when you nd yourself at an Internet cafe, coffee shop, or any other wi hot spot and wish to get online. The rst step is to tell your wireless NIC what network to join. Make sure you %p replace with whatever network interface your wireless card uses and change mynetwork to the essid you wish to use. Yes, we know youre smarter than that. Next youll have to specify the encryption key (if any) used on your wireless network. Finally specify the channel to use (if needed).
iwconfig eth0 essid "mynetwork " # iwconfig eth0 key XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX # iwconfig eth0 channel n
#
. V!
)"
.)
!
)v.))
That should be all on the wireless end of things.
Congure the Network

This is done in the exact same way as wired networks. Simply refer to earlier sections
69
Chapter 5 Network Conguration of this chapter.
5.6 Network File Systems

At this point, you should have a working TCP/IP connection to your network. You should be able to ping other computers on your internal network and, if you have congured an appropriate gateway, you should also be able to ping computers on the Internet itself. As we know, the whole point in bringing a computer onto a network is to access information. While some people might bring a computer up on a network just for the fun of it, most people wish to be able to share les and printers. They wish to be able to access documents on the Internet or play an online game. Having TCP/IP installed and functional on your new Slackware system is a means to that end, but with just TCP/IP installed, functionality will be very rudimentary. To share les, we will have to transfer them back and forth using either FTP or SCP. We cannot browse les on our new Slackware computer from the Network Neighborhood or My Network Places icons on Windows computers. Wed like to be able to access les on other Unix machines seamlessly. Ideally, wed like to be able to use a network le system to allow us transparent access to our les on other computers. The programs that we use to interact with information stored on our computers really do not need to know on what computer a given le is stored; they just need to know that it exists and how to get to it. It is then the responsibility of the operating system to manage access to that le through the available le systems and network le systems. The two most commonly used network le systems are SMB (as implemented by Samba) and NFS.
SMB/Samba/CIFS
SMB (for Server Message Block) is a descendant of the older NetBIOS protocol that was initially used by IBM in their LAN Manager product. Microsoft has always been fairly interested in NetBIOS and its successors (NetBEUI, SMB and CIFS).
70
Chapter 5 Network Conguration The Samba project has existed since 1991, when it was originally written to link an IBM PC running NetBIOS with a Unix server. These days, SMB is the preferred method for sharing le and print services over a network for virtually the entire civilized world because Windows supports it.
; one of the most well commented Sambas conguration le is and documented conguration les you will nd anywhere. Sample shares have been setup for you to view and modify for your needs. If you need even tighter control the man page for smb.conf is indispensable. Since Samba is documented so well in the places Ive mentioned above, we will not rewrite the documentation here. We will, however, quickly cover the basics. * + * +7!
"
is broken down into multiple sections: one section per share, and a global section for setting options that are to be used everywhere. Some options are only valid in the global section; some are only valid outside the global section. Remember that the global section can be over-ridden by any other section. Refer to the man pages for more information. le to reect the network settings in You will most likely wish to edit your your LAN. I would suggest modifying the items listed below:
[global] # workgroup = NT-Domain-Name or Workgroup-Name, eg: LINUX2 workgroup = MYGROUP
+$!
)"
+$!
)"
Change the workgroup name to reect the workgroup or domain name that you are using locally.
# server string is the equivalent of the NT Description field server string = Samba Server
This will be the name of your Slackware computer displayed in the Network Neighborhood (or My Network Places) folder.
# Security mode. Most people will want user level security. See # security_level.txt for details. NOTE: To get the behaviour of # Samba-1.9.18, youll need to use "security = share".
71
security = user
Youll almost certainly wish to implement user level security on your Slackware system.
# You may wish to use password encryption. Please read # ENCRYPTION.txt, Win95.txt and WinNT.txt in the Samba # documentation. # Do not enable this option unless you have read those documents encrypt passwords = yes
If encrypt passwords is not enabled, you will not be able to use Samba with NT4.0, Win2k, WinXP, and Win2003. Earlier Windows operating systems did not require encryption to share les. SMB is an authenticated protocol, meaning you must supply a correct username and password in order to use this service. We tell the samba server what usernames and passwords are valid with the smbpasswd command. smbpasswd takes a couple of common switches to tell it to either add traditional users, or add machine users (SMB requires that you add the computers NETBIOS names as machine users, restricting what computers one can authenticate from).
Adding a user to the mmdl~~~!~dmdddo~P~P!~ file. # smbpasswd -a user Adding a machine name to the /etc/samba/private/smbpasswd file. # smbpasswd -a -m machine
Its important to note that a given username or machine name must already exist )( *). in the le. You can accomplish this simply with the adduser command. Note that when using the adduser command to add a machine name one must append a dollar sign ( $) to the machine name. This should not however, be done with smbpasswd. smbpasswd appends the dollar sign on its own. Failing to mangle the machine name this way with adduser will result in an error when adding the machine name to samba.
#
adduser machine$
72
Network File System (NFS)

NFS (or Network File System) was originally written by Sun for their Solaris implementation of Unix. While it is signicantly easier to get up and running when compared to SMB, it is also signicantly less secure. The primary insecurity in NFS is that it is easy to spoof user and group ids from one machine to another. NFS is an unauthenticated protocol. Future versions of the NFS protocol are being devised that enhance security, but these are not common at the time of this writing. NFS conguration is governed by the le. When you load the default )=(
)' le into an editor, youll see a blank le with a two line comment on top. Well need to add a line to the exports le for each directory that we wish to export, with a listing of client workstations that will be allowed to access that le. %
"
)
to workstation Bar, we would For instance, if we wished to export directory simply add the line:
/home/foo Bar(rw)
=(

to our le:
=(

. Below, youll nd the example from the man page for the
=(

# sample /etc/exports file / master(rw) trusty(rw,no_root_squash) /projects proj*.local.domain(rw) /usr *.local.domain(ro) @trusted(rw) /home/joe pc001(rw,all_squash,anonuid=150,anongid=100) /pub (ro,insecure,all_squash)
As you can see, there are various options available, but most should be fairly clear from this example. NFS works under the assumption that a given user on one machine in a network has the same user ID on all machines across the network. When an attempt is made to read or write from a NFS client to an NFS server, a UID is passed as part of the read/write request. This UID is treated the same as if the read/write request originated on the local machine. As you can see, if one could arbitrarily specify a given UID when accessing resources on a remote system, Bad Things (tm) could
73
Chapter 5 Network Conguration and would happen. As a partial hedge against this, each directory is mounted with the root_squash option. This maps the UID for any user claiming to be root to a different UID, thus preventing root access to the les or folders in the exported directory. root_squash seems to be enabled by default as a security measure, but =)(
the authors recommend specifying it anyway in your le. You can also export a directory directly from the command line on the server by using the exportfs command as follows:
#
exportfs -o rw,no_root_squash Bar:/home/foo

%
"

* *
This line exports the directory to the computer and grants read/write access. Additionally, the NFS server will not invoke root_squash, which means any user on Bar with a UID of 0 (roots UID) will have the same privileges as root on the server. The syntax does look strange (usually when a directory is specied in computer:/directory/file syntax, you are referring to a le in a directory on a given computer). Youll nd more information on the man page for the exports le.
74
Chapter 6
X Conguration
Starting with Slackware-10.0, the X Window environment in Slackware is provided by Xorg. X is responsible for providing a graphical user interface. It is independent from the operating system, unlike Windows or the MacOS. The X Window System is implemented through many programs that run in userland. The two main components are the server and the window manager. The server provides the lowlevel functions for interacting with your video hardware, thus it is system specic. The window manager sits on top of the server and provides the user interface. The advantage to this is you can have many different graphical interfaces by simply changing the window manager you use. Conguring X can be a complex task. The reason for this is the vast numbers of video cards available for the PC architecture, most of which use different programming interfaces. Luckily, most cards today support basic video standards known as VESA, and if your card is among them youll be able to start X using the startx command right out of the box. If this doesnt work with your card, or if youd like to take advantage of the highperformance features of your video card such as hardware acceleration or 3-D hardware rendering, then youll need to recongure X.
i le. This le contains To congure X, youll need to make an lots of details about your video hardware, mouse, and monitor. Its a very complex conguration le, but fortunately there are several programs to help create one for you. Well mention a few of them here. ) &=
9I!
"
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Chapter 6 X Conguration
6.1 xorgcong
This is a simple menu driven frontend thats similar in feel to the Slackware installer. It simply tells the X server to take a look at the card, and then set up the best initial conguration le it can make based on the information it gathers. The generated ) &=
)97!
" le should be a good starting point for most systems (and should i work without modication). This is a text-based X conguration program thats designed for the advanced system administrator. Heres a sample walkthrough using xorgconfig. First, start the program:
#
xorgconfig
This will present a screenful of information about xorgconfig. To continue, press ENTER. xorgconfig will ask you to verify you have set your PATH correctly. It should be ne, so go ahead and hit ENTER.
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Chapter 6 X Conguration Figure 6-1. xorgcong Mouse Conguration

First specify a mouse protocol type. Choose one from the following list: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. Auto SysMouse MouseSystems PS/2 Microsoft Busmouse IMPS/2 ExplorerPS/2 GlidePointPS/2 MouseManPlusPS/2 NetMousePS/2 NetScrollPS/2 ThinkingMousePS/2 AceCad
The recommended protocol is Auto. If you have a very old mouse or dont want OS support or auto detection, and you have a two-button or three-button serial mouse, it is most likely of type Microsoft. Enter a protocol number:
Select your mouse from the menu presented. If you dont see your serial mouse listed, pick the Microsoft protocol -- its the most common and will probably work. Next xorgconfig will ask you about using ChordMiddle and Emulate3Buttons. Youll see these options described in detail on the screen. Use them if the middle button on your mouse doesnt work under X, or if your mouse only has two buttons (Emulate3Buttons lets you simulate the middle button by pressing both buttons simultaneously). Then, enter the name of your mouse device. The default choice, #
, should work since the link was congured during Slackware setup. If youre running GPM (the Linux mouse server) in repeater mode, you can set your #9( ** mouse type to to have X get information about the mouse through gpm. In some cases (with busmice especially) this can work better, but most users shouldnt do this.
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Chapter 6 X Conguration will ask you about enabling special key bindings. If you need this say y. Most users can say n -- enter this if youre not sure.
xorgconfig
Figure 6-2. xorgcong Horizontal Sync

You must indicate the horizontal sync range of your monitor. You can either select one of the predefined ranges below that correspond to industrystandard monitor types, or give a specific range. It is VERY IMPORTANT that you do not specify a monitor type with a horizontal sync range that is beyond the capabilities of your monitor. If in doubt, choose a conservative setting. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 hsync in kHz; monitor type with characteristic modes 31.5; Standard VGA, 640x480 @ 60 Hz 31.5 - 35.1; Super VGA, 800x600 @ 56 Hz 31.5, 35.5; 8514 Compatible, 1024x768 @ 87 Hz interlaced (no 800x600) 31.5, 35.15, 35.5; Super VGA, 1024x768 @ 87 Hz interlaced, 800x600 @ 56 Hz 31.5 - 37.9; Extended Super VGA, 800x600 @ 60 Hz, 640x480 @ 72 Hz 31.5 - 48.5; Non-Interlaced SVGA, 1024x768 @ 60 Hz, 800x600 @ 72 Hz 31.5 - 57.0; High Frequency SVGA, 1024x768 @ 70 Hz 31.5 - 64.3; Monitor that can do 1280x1024 @ 60 Hz 31.5 - 79.0; Monitor that can do 1280x1024 @ 74 Hz 31.5 - 82.0; Monitor that can do 1280x1024 @ 76 Hz Enter your own horizontal sync range
Enter your choice (1-11):
In the next section you enter the sync range for your monitor. To start conguring your monitor, press ENTER. You will see a list of monitor types -- choose one of them. Be careful not to exceed the specications of your monitor. Doing so could damage your hardware.
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Chapter 6 X Conguration Figure 6-3. xorgcong Vertical Sync

You must indicate the vertical sync range of your monitor. You can either select one of the predefined ranges below that correspond to industrystandard monitor types, or give a specific range. For interlaced modes, the number that counts is the high one (e.g. 87 Hz rather than 43 Hz). 1 2 3 4 5 50-70 50-90 50-100 40-150 Enter your own vertical sync range
Enter your choice:
Specify the vertical sync range for your monitor (you should nd this in the manual for the monitor). xorgcong will ask you to enter strings to identify the monitor type =
9I
)" le. Enter anything you like on these 3 lines (including nothing at in the all).
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Chapter 6 X Conguration Figure 6-4. xorgcong Video Card

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 * Generic VESA compatible * Generic VGA compatible * Unsupported VGA compatible ** 3DLabs, TI (generic) ** 3Dfx (generic) ** ATI (generic) ** ATI Radeon (generic) ** ATI Rage 128 based (generic) ** Alliance Pro Motion (generic) ** Ark Logic (generic) ** Chips and Technologies (generic) ** Cirrus Logic (generic) ** Cyrix MediaGX (generic) ** DEC TGA (generic) ** Intel i740 (generic) ** Intel i810 (generic) ** Linux framebuffer (generic) ** Matrox Graphics (generic) [glint] [tdfx] [ati] [radeon] [r128] [apm] [ark] [chips] [cirrus] [cyrix] [tgz] [i740] [i810] [fbdev] [mga] -
Enter a number to choose the corresponding card definition. Press enter for the next page, q to continue configuration.
Now you have the opportunity to look at the database of video card types. Youll want to do this, so say y, and select a card from the list shown. If you dont see your exact card, try selecting one that uses the same chipset and it will probably work ne. Next, tell xorgconfig how much RAM you have on your video card. xorgconfig will want you to enter some more descriptive text about your video card. If you like, you can enter descriptions on these three lines. Youll then be asked which display resolutions you want to use. Again, going with ) i the provided defaults should be ne to start with. Later on, you can edit the =
9I!
" le and rearrange the modes so 1024x768 (or whatever mode you like) is the default.
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Chapter 6 X Conguration At this point, the xorgconfig program will ask if youd like to save the current conguration le. Answer yes, and the X conguration le is saved, completing the setup process. You can start X now with the startx command.
6.2 xorgsetup
The second way to congure X is to use program that comes with Slackware.
xorgsetup,
an automagical conguration
To run xorgsetup, log in as root and type:

#
xorgsetup
) &=
)97!
"
If youve already got an i le (because youve already congured X), youll be asked if you want to backup the existing cong le before continuing. )=
)9I
)"7v+* )( The original le will be renamed to . i
6.3 xinitrc
xinit(1)
is the program that actually starts X; it is called by startx(1), so you may not have noticed it (and probably dont really need to). Its conguration le, however, determines which programs (including and especially the window manager) are v= le. If run when X starts up. xinit rst checks your home directory for a #* ~jx) +==) the le is found, it gets run; otherwise, (the systemwide i =) default) is used. Heres a simple le:
#!/bin/sh # $XConsortium: xinitrc.cpp,v 1.4 91/08/22 11:41:34 rws Exp $ userresources=$HOME/.Xresources usermodmap=$HOME/.Xmodmap sysresources=/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/xinit/.Xresources sysmodmap=/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/xinit/.Xmodmap
81
# merge in defaults and keymaps if [ -f $sysresources ]; then xrdb -merge $sysresources fi if [ -f $sysmodmap ]; then xmodmap $sysmodmap fi if [ -f $userresources ]; then xrdb -merge $userresources fi if [ -f $usermodmap ]; then xmodmap $usermodmap fi # start some nice programs twm & xclock -geometry 50x50-1+1 & xterm -geometry 80x50+494+51 & xterm -geometry 80x20+494-0 & exec xterm -geometry 80x66+0+0 -name login
All of those if blocks are there to merge in various conguration settings from other les. The interesting part of the le is toward the end, where various programs are run. This X session will begin with the twm(1) window manager, a clock, and three terminals. Note the exec before the last xterm. What that does is replace = the currently running shell (the one thats executing this script) with that xterm(1) command. When the user quits that xterm, the X session will end. To customize your X startup, copy the default to i =) and edit it, replacing those program lines with whatever you like. The end of mine is simply:
# Start the window manager: exec startkde
# * )dj x)+ ==
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Chapter 6 X Conguration Note that there are several les in that correspond to i various window managers and GUIs. You can use any of those, if you like.
=l #* )djx) + =
6.4 xwmcong
For years, Unix was used almost exclusively as the operating system for servers, with the exception of high-powered professional workstations. Only the technically inclined were likely to use a Unix-like operating system, and the user interface reected this fact. GUIs tended to be fairly bare-bones, designed to run a few necessarily graphical applications like CAD programs and image renderers. Most le and system management was conducted at the command line. Various vendors (Sun Microsystems, Silicon Graphics, etc) were selling workstations with an attempt to provide a cohesive look and feel, but the wide variety of GUI toolkits in use by developers led inevitably to the dissolution of the desktops uniformity. A scrollbar might not look the same in two different applications. Menus might appear in different places. Programs would have different buttons and checkboxes. Colors ranged widely, and were generally hard-coded in each toolkit. As long as the users were primarily technical professionals, none of this mattered much. With the advent of free Unix-like operating systems and the growing number and variety of graphical applications, X has recently gained a wide desktop user base. Most users, of course, are accustomed to the consistent look and feel provided by Microsofts Windows or Apples MacOS; the lack of such consistency in X-based applications became a barrier to its wider acceptance. In response, two open source projects have been undertaken: The K Desktop Environment, or KDE, and the GNU Network Object Model Environment, known as GNOME. Each has a wide variety of applications, from taskbars and le managers to games and ofce suites, written with the same GUI toolkit and tightly integrated to provide a uniform, consistent desktop. The differences in KDE and GNOME are generally fairly subtle. They each look different from the other, because each uses a different GUI toolkit. KDE is based on the Qt library from Troll Tech AS, while GNOME uses GTK, a toolkit originally
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Chapter 6 X Conguration developed for The GNU Image Manipulation Program (or The GIMP, for short). As separate projects, KDE and GNOME each have their own designers and programmers, with different development styles and philosophies. The result in each case, however, has been fundamentally the same: a consistent, tightly integrated desktop environment and application collection. The functionality, usability, and sheer prettiness of both KDE and GNOME rival anything available on other operating systems. The best part, though, is that these advanced desktops are free. This means you can have either or both (yes, at the same time). The choice is yours. In addition to the GNOME and KDE desktops, Slackware includes a large collection of window managers. Some are designed to emulate other operating systems, some for customization, others for speed. Theres quite a variety. Of course you can install as many as you want, play with them all, and decide which you like the most. To make desktop selection easy, Slackware also includes a program called xwmconfig that can be used to select a desktop or window manager. It is run like so:
%
xwmconfig
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Chapter 6 X Conguration Figure 6-5. Desktop Conguration with xorgcong

SELECT DEFAULT WINDOW MANAGER FOR X
Please select the default window manager to use with the X Window System. This will define the style of graphical user interface the computer uses. KDE and GNOME provide the most features. People with Windows or MacOS experience will find either one easy to use. Other window managers are easier on system resources, or provide other unique features. xinitrc.kde KDE: K Desktop Environment xinitrc.gnome GNU Network Object Model Environment xinitrc.xfce The Cholesterol Free Desktop Environment xinitrc.blackbox The blackbox window manager xinitrc.fluxbox The fluxbox window manager xinitrc.wmaker WindowMaker xinitrc.fvwm2 F(?) Virtual Window Manager (version 2.xx) xinitrc.fvwm95 FVWM2 with a Windows look and feel xinitrc.twm Tab Window Manager (very basic)
< OK > < Cancel >
Youll be given a list of all the desktops and window managers installed. Just select the one you want from the list. Each user on your system will need to run this program, since different users can use different desktops, and not everyone will want the default one you selected at installation. Then just start up X, and youre good to go.
6.5 xdm
As Linux becomes more and more useful as a desktop operating system, many users nd it desirable for the machine to boot straight into a graphical environment. For this, you will need to tell Slackware to boot straight into X, and assign a graphical login manager. Slackware ships with three graphical login tools, xdm(1), kdm, and gdm(1).
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Chapter 6 X Conguration is the graphical login manager shipped with the X.org system. Its ubiquitous, but not as fully features as alternatives. kdm is the graphical login manager shipped with KDE, The K Desktop Environment. Finally, gdm is the login manager shipped with GNOME. Any of the choices will allow you to log in as any user, and choose what desktop you wish to use. Unfortunately, Slackware doesnt include a nice program like xwmconfig for choosing what login manager to use, so if all three are installed you may have to do some editing to choose your preference. But rst, well discuss how to boot into a graphical environment. In order to start X at boot, you need to boot into run-level 4. Run-levels are just a way of telling init(8) to do something different when it starts the OS. We do this )*+ . by editing the cong le for init,
# These are the default runlevels in Slackware: # 0 = halt # 1 = single user mode # 2 = unused (but configured the same as runlevel 3) # 3 = multiuser mode (default Slackware runlevel) # 4 = X11 with KDM/GDM/XDM (session managers) # 5 = unused (but configured the same as runlevel 3) # 6 = reboot # Default runlevel. (Do not set to 0 or 6) id:3:initdefault:
xdm
In order to make Slackware boot to a graphical environment, we just change the 3 to a 4.

# Default runlevel. (Do not set to 0 or 6) id:4:initdefault:
Now Slackware will boot into runlevel 4 and execute . This le starts up X and calls whatever login manager youve chosen. So, how do we choose login managers? There are a few ways to do this, and Ill explain them after we look at y .
y
86
# Try to use GNOMEs gdm session manager: if [ -x /usr/bin/gdm ]; then exec /usr/bin/gdm -nodaemon fi # Not there? OK, try to use KDEs kdm session manager: if [ -x /opt/kde/bin/kdm ]; then exec /opt/kde/bin/kdm -nodaemon fi # If all you have is XDM, I guess it will have to do: if [ -x /usr/X11R6/bin/xdm ]; then exec /usr/X11R6/bin/xdm -nodaemon fi
As you can see here, rst checks to see if gdm is executable, and if so runs it. Second on the list is kdm, and nally xdm. One way of choosing a login manager is to simply remove the ones you dont wish to use using removepkg. You can nd out more about removepkg in Chapter 18. Optionally, you can remove the executable permission from those les that you dont want to use. We discuss chmod in Chapter 9.
#
y
chmod -x /usr/bin/gdm
Finally, you can just comment out the lines for the login manager you dont want to use.
# Try to use GNOMEs gdm session manager: # if [ -x /usr/bin/gdm ]; then # exec /usr/bin/gdm -nodaemon # fi # Not there? OK, try to use KDEs kdm session manager: if [ -x /opt/kde/bin/kdm ]; then exec /opt/kde/bin/kdm -nodaemon fi # If all you have is XDM, I guess it will have to do:
87
if [ -x /usr/X11R6/bin/xdm ]; then exec /usr/X11R6/bin/xdm -nodaemon fi
Any lines preceded by the hash mark (#) are considered comments and the shell silently passes them. Thus, even if gdm is installed and executable, the shell (in this case bash) wont bother checking for it.
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Chapter 7
Booting
The process of booting your Linux system can sometimes be easy and sometimes be difcult. Many users install Slackware on their computer and thats it. They just turn it on and its ready to use. Othertimes, simply booting the machine can be a chore. For most users, LILO works best. Slackware includes LILO and Loadlin for booting Slackware Linux. LILO will work from a hard drive partition, a hard drives master boot record, or a oppy disk, making it a very versatile tool. Loadlin works from a DOS command line, killing DOS and invoking Linux. Another popular utility for booting Linux is GRUB. GRUB is not included or ofcially supported by Slackware. Slackware holds to the tried and true standard for what gets included inside the distribution. While GRUB works well and includes some features that LILO does not, LILO handles all the essential tasks of a boot loader reliably with a proven track record. Being younger, GRUB hasnt quite lived up to that legacy yet. As it is not included with Slackware, we do not discuss it here. If you wish to use GRUB (perhaps it came with another Linux OS and you want to use it to dual-boot) consult GRUBs documentation. This section covers using LILO and Loadlin, the two booters included with Slackware. It also explains some typical dual booting scenarios and how you could go about setting it up.
7.1 LILO
The Linux Loader, or LILO, is the most popular booter in use on Linux systems. It is quite congurable and can easily be used to boot other operating systems.
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Chapter 7 Booting Slackware Linux comes with a menu-driven conguration utility called liloconfig. This program is rst run during the setup process, but you can invoke it later by typing liloconfig at the prompt. LILO reads its settings from the /etc/lilo.conf(5) le. It is not read each time you boot up, but instead is read each time you install LILO. LILO must be reinstalled to the boot sector each time you make a conguration change. Many LILO errors come )
S
)" le, but failing to re-run lilo to install these from making changes to the changes. liloconfig will help you build the conguration le so that you can install ) )
S!
" by hand, then reinstalling LILO for your system. If you prefer to edit LILO just involves typing /sbin/lilo (as root) at the prompt. When you rst invoke liloconfig, it will look like this: Figure 7-1. lilocong
INSTALL LILO LILO (Linux Loader) is a generic boot loader. Theres a simple installation which tries to automatically set up LILO to boot Linux (also DOS/Windows if found). For more advanced users, the expert option offers more control over the installation process. Since LILO does not work in all cases (and can damage partitions if incorrectly installed), theres the third (safe) option, which is to skip installing LILO for now. You can always install it later with the liloconfig command. Which option would you like? simple Try to install LILO automatically expert Use expert lilo.conf setup menu skip Do not install LILO
< OK > < Cancel >
If this is your rst time setting up LILO, you should pick simple. Otherwise, you might nd expert to be faster if you are familiar with LILO and Linux. Selecting simple will begin the LILO conguration. If kernel frame buffer support is compiled into your kernel,
liloconfig
will ask
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Chapter 7 Booting which video resolution you would like to use. This is the resolution that is also used by the XFree86 frame buffer server. If you do not want the console to run in a special video mode, selecting normal will keep the standard 80x25 text mode in use. The next part of the LILO conguration is selecting where you want it installed. This is probably the most important step. The list below explains the installation places:
Root
This option installs LILO to the beginning of your Linux root partition. This is the safest option if you have other operating systems on your computer. It ensures that any other booters are not overwritten. The disadvantage is that LILO will only load from here if your Linux drive is the rst drive on your system. +
)
This is why many people chose to create a very small partition as the rst drive on their system. This allows the kernel and LILO to be installed at the beginning of the drive where LILO can nd them. Previous versions of LILO contained an infamous aw known as the 1024 cylinder limit. LILO was unable to boot kernels on partitions past the 1024th cylinder. Recent editions of LILO have eliminated this problem.
Floppy
This method is even safer than the previous one. It creates a boot oppy that you can use to boot your Linux system. This keeps the booter off the hard disk entirely, so you only boot this oppy when you want to use Slackware. The aws with this method are obvious. Floppies are notoriously ckle, prone to failures. Secondly, the boot loader is no longer self-contained within the computer. If you loose your oppy disk, youll have to make another to boot your system.
MBR
You will want to use this method if Slackware is the only operating system on your computer, or if you will be using LILO to choose between multiple operating systems on your computer. This is the most preferred method for
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Chapter 7 Booting installing LILO and will work with almost any computer system.
Warning: This option will overwrite any other booter you have in the MBR.
After selecting the installation location, liloconfig will write the conguration le and install LILO. Thats it. If you select the expert mode you will receive a special )
G!
)" menu. This menu allows you to tweak the le, add other operating systems to your boot menu, and set LILO to pass special kernel parameters at boot time. The expert menu looks like this: Figure 7-2. lilocong Expert Menu
EXPERT LILO INSTALLATION This menu directs the creation of the LILO config file, lilo.conf. To install, you make a new LILO configuration file by creating a new header and then adding one or more bootable partitions to the file. Once youve done this, you can select the install option. Alternately, if you already have an /etc/lilo.conf, you may reinstall using that. If you make a mistake, you can always start over by choosing Begin. Which option would you like? Begin Start LILO configuration with a new LILO header Linux Add a Linux partition to the LILO config DOS Add a DOS/Windows FAT partition to the LILO config Install Install LILO Recycle Reinstall LILO using the existing lilo.conf Skip Skip LILO installation and exit this menu View View your current /etc/lilo.conf Help Read the Linux Loader HELP file
< OK > < Cancel >
Whatever your system conguration is, setting up a working boot loader is easy.
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Chapter 7 Booting makes setting it up a cinch.
liloconfig
7.2 LOADLIN
The other booting option that comes with Slackware Linux is LOADLIN. LOADLIN is a DOS executable that can be used to start Linux from a running DOS system. It requires the Linux kernel to be on the DOS partition so that LOADLIN can load it and properly boot the system. During the installation process, LOADLIN will be copied to roots home directory as a .ZIP le. There is no automatic setup process for LOADLIN. You will need to +

# )){ copy the Linux kernel (typically ) and the LOADLIN le from roots home directory to the DOS partition. LOADLIN is useful if you would like to make a boot menu on your DOS partition. A menu could be added to your C)A ? h i h) )CA le that would allow you to pick between Linux or DOS. A choice of Linux would run LOADLIN, thus booting your Slackware system. This C)A ? h i h) )CA le under Windows 95 will provide a sufcient boot menu:
@ECHO OFF SET PROMPT=$P$G SET PATH=C:\WINDOWS;C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND;C:\ CLS ECHO Please Select Your Operating System: ECHO. ECHO [1] Slackware Linux ECHO [2] Windows 95 ECHO. CHOICE /C:12 "Selection? -> " IF ERRORLEVEL 2 GOTO WIN IF ERRORLEVEL 1 GOTO LINUX :WIN CLS ECHO Starting Windows 95... WIN GOTO END
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Chapter 7 Booting
:LINUX ECHO Starting Slackware Linux... CD \LINUX LOADLIN C:\LINUX\VMLINUZ ROOT=<root partition device> RO GOTO END :END
You will want to specify your root partition as a Linux device name, like or something else. You can always use LOADLIN at the command line. You simply use it in the same manner as it is in the example above. The LOADLIN documentation comes with many examples on how to use it.
#%)*n
7.3 Dual Booting

Many users set up their computers to boot Slackware Linux and another operating system. Weve described several typical dual boot scenarios below, in case you are having difculty setting up your system.
Windows
Setting up a computer with both MS Windows and Linux is probably the most common dual boot scenario. There are numerous ways you can setup the booting, but this section will cover two. Often times when setting up a dual boot system, a person will devise a perfect plan for where everything should go but mess up the installation order. It is very important to understand that operating systems need to be installed in a certain order for a dual boot setup to work. Linux always offers control over what, if anything, gets written to the Master Boot Record. Therefore, its always advisable to install Linux last. Windows should be installed rst, since it will always write its booter to the Master Boot Record, overwriting any entry Linux may have put there.
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Chapter 7 Booting Using LILO Most people will want to use LILO to chose between Linux and Windows. As stated above, you should install Windows rst, then Linux. Lets say you have a 40GB IDE hard disk as the only drive in your system. Lets also say that you want to give half of that space to Windows and half of that space to Linux. This will present a problem when trying to boot Linux.
20GB 1GB 19GB Windows boot (C:) Linux root (/) Linux /usr (/usr)
You would also want to set aside an adequate amount of space for a Linux swap partition. The unwritten rule is to use twice the amount of RAM you have in disk space. A 64MB system would have 128MB of swap, and so on. Adequate swap space is the discussion of many ames on IRC and Usenet. Theres no truly right way to do it, but sticking with the rule above should be sufcient. With your partitions laid out, you should proceed to install Windows. After that is set up and working, you should install Linux. The LILO installation needs special attention. You will want to select the expert mode for installing LILO. Begin a new LILO conguration. You will want to install it to Master Boot Record so that it can be used to choose between the two operating systems. From the menu, add your Linux partition and add your Windows (or DOS) partition. Once thats complete, you can install LILO. Reboot the computer. LILO should load and will display a menu letting you select between the operating systems you have installed. Select the name of the OS you wish to load (these names were selected when you setup LILO). LILO is quite a congurable boot loader. Its not just limited to booting Linux or
G!
)" (5) DOS. It can boot just about anything. The man pages for lilo(8) and provide more detailed information. What if LILO doesnt work? There are instances where LILO just wont work on a particular machine. Fortunately, there is another way to dual boot Linux and Win-
95
Chapter 7 Booting dows.
Using LOADLIN This method can be used if LILO doesnt work on your system, or if you just dont want to set up LILO. This method is also ideal for the user that reinstalls Windows often. Each time you reinstall Windows, it will overwrite the Master Boot Record, thus destroying any LILO installation. With LOADLIN, you are not subject to that problem. The biggest disadvantage is that you can only use LOADLIN to boot Linux. With LOADLIN, you can install the operating systems in any order desired. Be careful about installing things to the Master Boot Record, you do not want to do that. LOADLIN relies on the Windows partition being bootable. So during the Slackware installation, make sure you skip the LILO setup. After installing the operating systems, copy the (where X is a version i number, such as 16a) le from roots home directory to your Windows partition. Also copy your kernel image to the Windows partition. You will need to be in Linux for this to work. This example shows how to do this:
# # # # # # # #
)
*
{(
mkdir /win mount -t vfat /dev/hda1 /win mkdir /win/linux cd /root cp loadlin* /win/linux cp /boot/vmlinuz /win/linux cd /win/linuz unzip loadlin16a.zip
<'q #
)i directory on your Windows partition (assuming its That will create a ro %* ) and copy over the necessary stuff for LOADLIN. After doing this, you will need to reboot into Windows to setup a boot menu.
Once in Windows, get to a DOS prompt. First, we need to make sure the system is set to not boot into the graphical interface.
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Chapter 7 Booting
C:\> cd \ C:\> attrib -r -a -s -h MSDOS.SYS C:\> edit MSDOS.SYS
Add this line to the le:

BootGUI=0
Now save the le and exit the editor. Now edit roCA? h i h C)A so we can add a boot menu. The following provides an example of what a boot menu block in C)A ? h i h) )CA would look like:
cls echo System Boot Menu echo. echo 1 - Linux echo 2 - Windows echo. choice /c:12 "Selection? -> " if errorlevel 2 goto WIN if errorlevel 1 goto LINUX :LINUX cls echo "Starting Linux..." cd \linux loadlin c:\linux\vmlinuz root=/dev/hda2 ro goto END :WIN cls echo "Starting Windows..." win goto END :END
The key line is the one that runs LOADLIN. We tell it the kernel to load, the Linux root partition, and that we want it mounted read-only initially. The tools for these two methods are provided with Slackware Linux. There are numerous other booters on the market, but these should work for most dual boot setups.
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Chapter 7 Booting Deprecated Windows NT Hack This is the least common dual booting situation. In the days of old, LILO was unable to boot Windows NT, requiring Linux users to hack NTLDR, which presented several more problems than dual booting between Windows 9x and Linux. Understand that the following instructions are deprecated. LILO has been able to boot Windows NT/2000/XP/2003 for many years now. If you are using a legacy machine though, you may need to use just such a hack. 1. Install Windows NT 2. Install Linux, making sure LILO is installed to the superblock of the Linux partition 3. Get the rst 512 bytes of the Linux root partition and store it on the Windows NT partition 4. Edit
ru?)?A !qq
under Windows NT to add a Linux option
Installing Windows NT should be fairly straightforward, as should installing Linux. From there, it gets a little more tricky. Grabbing the rst 512 bytes of the Linux partition is easier than it sounds. You will need to be in Linux to accomplish this. # %*n Assuming your Linux partition is , issue this command:
#
dd if=/dev/hda2 of=/tmp/bootsect.lnx bs=1 count=512
Thats it. Now you need to copy bootsect.lnx to the Windows NT partition. Heres where we run into another problem. Linux does not have stable write support for the NTFS lesystem. If you installed Windows NT and formatted your drive as NTFS, you will need to copy this le to a FAT oppy and then read from it under Windows NT. If you formatted the Windows NT drive as FAT, you can simply mount it under ( +

'$o= Linux and copy the le over. Either way, you will want to get from t h < A i on the Windows NT drive. the Linux drive to ru ??A The last step is adding a menu option to the Windows NT boot menu. Under Windows NT open a command prompt.
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Chapter 7 Booting
C:\WINNT> cd \ C:\> attrib -r -a -s -h boot.ini C:\> edit boot.ini
Add this line to the end of the le:

C:\bootsect.lnx="Slackware Linux"
Save the changes and exit the editor. When you reboot Windows NT, you will have a Linux option on the menu. Choosing it will boot into Linux.
Linux
Yes, people really do this. This is denitely the easiest dual boot scenario. You can )
S
)" simply use LILO and add more entries to the le. Thats all there is to it.
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Chapter 7 Booting
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Chapter 8
The Shell
In a graphical environment, the interface is provided by a program that creates windows, scrollbars, menus, etc. In a commandline environment, the user interface is provided by a shell, which interprets commands and generally makes things useable. Immediately after logging in (which is covered in this chapter), users are put into a shell and allowed to go about their business. This chapter serves as an introduction to the shell, and to the most common shell among Linux users-- the Bourne Again Shell (bash). For more detailed information on anything in this chapter, check out the bash(1) man page.
8.1 Users
Logging In
So youve booted, and youre looking at something that looks like this:
Welcome to Linux 2.4.18 Last login: Wed Jan 1 15:59:14 -0500 2005 on tty6. darkstar login:
Hmm.. nobody said anything about a login. And whats a darkstar? Dont worry; you probably didnt accidentally re up a hyperspace comm-link to the Empires articial moon. (Im afraid the hyperspace comm-link protocol isnt currently supported by the Linux kernel. Maybe the 2.8 kernel branch will at last provide this oft looked-for support.) No, darkstar is just the name of one of our computers, and
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Chapter 8 The Shell its name gets stamped on as the default. If you specied a name for your computer during setup, you should see it instead of darkstar. As for the login... If this is your rst time, youll want to log in as root. Youll be prompted for a password; if you set one during the setup process, thats what its looking for. If not, just hit enter. Thats it-- youre in!
Root: The Superuser

Okay, who or what is root? And whats it doing with an account on your system? Well, in the world of Unix and similar operating systems (like Linux), there are users and then there are users. Well go into this in more detail later, but the important thing to know now is that root is the user above all users; root is all-powerful and all-knowing, and nobody disobeys root. It just isnt allowed. root is what we call a superuser, and rightly so. And best of all, root is you. Cool, huh? If youre not sure: yes, thats very cool. The catch is, though, that root is inherently allowed to break anything it so desires. You might want to skip ahead to Section 12.1.1 and see about adding a user; then login as that user and work from there. The traditional wisdom is that its best to only become the superuser when absolutely necessary, so as to minimize the possibility of accidentally breaking something. By the way, if you decide you want to be root while youre logged in as someone else, no problem. Just use the su(1) command. Youll be asked for roots password and then it will make you root until you exit or logout. You can also become any other user using su, provided you know that users password: su logan, for instance, would make you me.
Note: root is allowed to su to any user, without requiring their password.
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8.2 The Command Line

Running Programs
Its hard to get much accomplished without running a program; you might be able to prop something up with your computer or hold a door open, and some will make the most lovely humming noise when running, but thats really about it. And I think we can all agree that its use as a humming doorstop isnt what brought the personal computer the popularity it now enjoys. So, remember how almost everything in Linux is a le? Well, that goes for programs, too. Every command you run (that isnt built into the shell) resides as a le somewhere. You run a program simply by specifying the full path to it. For instance, remember that su command from the last section? Well, its actually in + directory: /bin/su would run it nicely. the . So why, then, does just typing su work? After all, you didnt say it was in )
*)%* It could just as easily have been in , right? How did it know? The answer to that lies in the PATH environment variable; most shells have either PATH or something very much like PATH. It basically contains a list of directories to look in for programs you try to run. So when you ran su, your shell ran through its list of directories, checking each one for an executable le called su that it could run; the rst one it came to, it ran. This happens whenever you run a program without specifying a full path to it; if you get a Command not found error, that only means that the program you tried to run isnt in your PATH. (Of course, this would be true if the program doesnt exist at all...) Well discuss environment variables in more depth in Section 8.3.1. Remember also that is shorthand for the current directory, so if you happened to + u& be in , would have worked as an explicit full path.
+
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Chapter 8 The Shell
Wildcard Matching
Nearly every shell recognizes some characters as being substitutes or abbreviations that mean anything goes here. Such characters are aptly named wildcards; the most common are * and ?. By convention, ? usually matches any single char= v)= =nGv)= acter. For instance, suppose youre in a directory with three les: , , =sGv)= . You want to copy all of those les (using the cp command we cover and ( in Section 10.5.1) to another directory, say - . Well, typing cp ex1.txt ex2.txt ex3.txt /tmp is entirely too much work. Its much easier to type cp ex?.txt /tmp; the ? will match each of the characters 1, 2, and 3, and each in turn will be substituted in. Whats that you say? Thats still too much work? Youre right. Its appalling; we have labor laws to protect us from that sort of thing. Fortunately, we also have *. As was already mentioned, * matches any number of characters, including 0. So if those three les were the only ones in the directory, we could have simply said cp * /tmp and gotten them all in one fell swoop. Suppose, though, that there is also a le =$v)= %)*{Iv)= =$v)= % *{I=) called and one called . We want to copy but not ; cp ex* /tmp will do that for us.
cp ex?.txt /tmp, would, of course, only get our original three les; theres no char-
acter in
=7=)
to match that ?, so it would be left out.
Another common wildcard is the bracket pair [ ]. Any characters inside the brackets will be substituted in place of the [ ] to nd matches. Sound confusing? Its not too * bad. Suppose for instance, we have a directory containing the following 8 les: , *)n *s *y * * * * , , , C , , , and k . We want to only nd the les ending in numbers; [ ] will do this for us.
ls a[1-4] a1 a2 a3 a4
%
But what we really want is just , , and ? In the previous example we used to mean all values between 1 and 4. We can also separate individual entries with commas.
*'
*n
*y
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Chapter 8 The Shell
% ls a[1,2,4] a1 a2 a4
I know what youre thinking now, Well what about letters? Linux is case-sensitive, meaning that a and A are different characters and are only related in your mind. Capitals always come before lowercase letters, so A and B come before a and b. *' Continuing with our earlier example, if we wanted les , and C , we can nd these quickly with [ ].
% ls [A,a]1 A1 a1
Note, that if we had included a hyphen instead of a comma, we would have gotten incorrect results.
% ls [A-a]1 A1 B1 C1 D1 a1
You can also combine hyphen and comma strings.

% ls [A,a-d] A1 a1 b1 c1 d1
Input/Output Redirection and Piping

(Here comes something cool.)
%
ps > blargh
Yknow what that is? Thats me running ps to see which processes are running; ps is covered in Section 11.3. Thats not the cool part. The cool part is > blargh, which + *)9% means, roughly, take the output from ps and write it to a le called . But wait, it gets cooler.
%
ps | less
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Chapter 8 The Shell That one takes the output from ps and pipes it through less, so I can scroll through it at my leisure.
%
ps >> blargh
This is the third most commonly used redirector; it does the same thing as >, +)*)9% except that >> will append output from ps to the le , if said le exists. If not, just like >, it will be created. ( > will obliterate the current contents of + *)9% .) There is also a < operator, which means take your input from the following, but its not used nearly so often.
%
fromdos < dosfile.txt > unixfile.txt
Redirection gets really fun when you start piling it up:

%
ps | tac >> blargh

+)*)9%
. That will run ps, reverse the lines of its output, and append those to the le You can stack as many of these up as you want; just be careful to remember that they get interpreted from left to right. See the bash(1) man page for more detailed information on redirection.
8.3 The Bourne Again Shell (bash)

Environment Variables
A Linux system is a complex beast, and theres a lot to keep track of, a lot of little details that come into play in your normal interactions with various programs (some of which you might not even need to be aware of). Nobody wants to pass a bunch of options to every program that gets run, telling it what kind of terminal is being used, the hostname of the computer, how their prompt should look...
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Chapter 8 The Shell
Example 8-1. Listing Environment Variables with set

set PATH=/usr/local/lib/qt/bin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/X11R6/bin: /usr/openwin/bin:/usr/games:.:/usr/local/ssh2/bin:/usr/local/ssh1/bin: /usr/share/texmf/bin:/usr/local/sbin:/usr/sbin:/home/logan/bin PIPESTATUS=([0]="0") PPID=4978 PS1=\h:\w\$ PS2=> PS4=+ PWD=/home/logan QTDIR=/usr/local/lib/qt REMOTEHOST=ninja.tdn SHELL=/bin/bash
%
So as a coping mechanism, users have whats called an environment. The environment denes the conditions in which programs run, and some of this denition is variable; the user can alter and play with it, as is only right in a Linux system. Pretty much any shell will have environment variables (if not, its probably not a very useable shell). Here we will give an overview of the commands bash provides for manipulating its environment variables. by itself will show you all of the environment variables that are currently dened, as well as their values. Like most bash built-ins, it can also do several other things (with parameters); well leave it to the bash(1) man page to cover that, though. Example 8-1 shows an excerpt from a set command run on one of the authors computers. Notice in this example the PATH variable that was discussed earlier. Programs in any of those directories can be run simply by typing the base lename.
set
%
unset VARIABLE
unset will remove any variables that you give it, wiping out both the variable and its
value; bash will forget that variable ever existed. (Dont worry. Unless its something you explicitly dened in that shell session, itll probably get redened in any other session.)
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Chapter 8 The Shell
export VARIABLE=some_value
Now, export is truly handy. Using it, you give the environment variable VARIABLE the value some_value; if VARIABLE didnt exist, it does now. If VARIABLE already had a value, well, its gone. Thats not so good, if youre just trying to add a directory to your PATH. In that case, you probably want to do something like this:
%
export PATH=$PATH:/some/new/directory
Note the use of $PATH there: when you want bash to interpret a variable (replace it with its value), tack a $ onto the beginning of the variables name. For instance, echo $PATH will echo the value of PATH, in my case:
echo $PATH /usr/local/lib/qt/bin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/X11R6/bin: /usr/openwin/bin:/usr/games:.:/usr/local/ssh2/bin:/usr/local/ssh1/bin: /usr/share/texmf/bin:/usr/local/sbin:/usr/sbin:/home/logan/bin
%
Tab Completion
(Here comes something cool again.) 1. A commandline interface means lots of typing. 2. Typing is work. 3. Nobody likes work. From 3 and 2, we can determine that (4) nobody likes typing. Fortunately, bash saves us from (5) (nobody likes a commandline interface). How does bash accomplish this wonderful feat, you ask? In addition to the wildcard expansion we discussed before, bash features tab completion. Tab completion works something like this: Youre typing the name of a le. Maybe its in your PATH, maybe youre typing it out explicitly. All you have to do is type
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Chapter 8 The Shell enough of the lename to uniquely identify it. Then hit the tab key. bash will gure out what you want and nish typing it for you! Example time. contains two subdirectories: )= * . I want to see whats in . So I just type the TAB key, and bash gives me ls /usr/src/linux.
' &)= '& '& )=
and
'&
ls /usr/src/l,
)
hit
: Now, suppose there are two directories and ; If I '& '& and hit TAB, bash will ll in as much as it can, and Ill get type )= . I can stop there, or I can hit TAB again, and bash will show a list of directories that match what Ive typed so far.
))=
Hence, less typing (and hence, people can like commandline interfaces). I told you it was cool.
8.4 Virtual Terminals

So youre in the middle of working on something and you decide you need to do something else. You could just drop what youre doing and switch tasks, but this is a multi-user system, right? And you can log in as many times simultaneously as you want, right? So why should you have to do one thing at a time? You dont. We cant all have multiple keyboards, mice, and monitors for one machine; chances are most of us dont want them. Clearly, hardware isnt the solution. That leaves software, and Linux steps up on this one, providing virtual terminals, or VTs. By pressing Alt and a function key, you can switch between virtual terminals; each function key corresponds to one. Slackware has logins on 6 VTs by default. Alt+F2 will take you to the second one, Alt+F3 to the third, etc. The rest of the function keys are reserved for X sessions. Each X session uses its own VT, beginning with the seventh (Alt+F7) and going up. When in X, the Alt+Function key combination is replaced with Ctrl+Alt+Function; so if you are in X and want to get back to a text login (without exiting your X session),
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Chapter 8 The Shell Ctrl+Alt+F3 will take you to the third. (Alt+F7 will take you back, assuming youre using the rst X session.)
Screen
But what about situations where there are no virtual terminals? What then? Fortunately, slackware includes a beautiful screen manager aptly named screen. screen is a terminal emulator that has virtual terminal like capabilities. Executing screen ashes a brief introduction, then dumps to a terminal. Unlike the standard virtual terminals, screen has its own commands. All screen commands are prexed with a Crtl+A keystroke. For example, Ctrl+A+C will create a new terminal session. Ctrl+A+N will switch to the next terminal. Ctrl+A+P switches to the previous terminal.
screen also supports detaching and re-attaching to screen sessions which is particu-
larly useful for remote sessions via ssh and telnet, (more on those later). Ctrl+A+D will detach from the currently running screen. Executing screen -r will list all currently running screen sessions you may reattach to.
screen -r There are several suitable screens on: 1212.pts-1.redtail (Detached) 1195.pts-1.redtail (Detached) 1225.pts-1.redtail (Detached) 17146.pts-1.sanctuary (Dead ???) Remove dead screens with screen -wipe. Type "screen [-d] -r [pid.]tty.host" to resume one of them.
%
Running screen -r 1212 would reattach to the rst screen listed. I mentioned earlier how useful this was for remote sessions. If I were to login to a remote slackware server via ssh, and my connection was severed by some chance occurrence such as a local power failure, whatever I was doing at that moment would instantly perish, which can be a horrible thing for your server. Using screen prevents this by detaching my session if my connection is dropped. Once my connection is restored, I can reattach to my screen session and resume right where I left off.
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Chapter 9
Filesystem Structure
We have already discussed the directory structure in Slackware Linux. By this point, you should be able to nd les and directories that you need. But there is more to the lesystem than just the directory structure. Linux is a multiuser operating system. Every aspect of the system is multiuser, even the lesystem. The system stores information like who owns a le and who can read it. There are other unique parts about the lesystems, such as links and NFS mounts. This section explains these, as well as the multiuser aspects of the lesystem.
9.1 Ownership
The lesystem stores ownership information for each le and directory on the system. This includes what user and group own a particular le. The easiest way to see this information is with the ls command:
% ls -l /usr/bin/wc -rwxr-xr-x 1 root
bin
7368 Jul 30
1999 /usr/bin/wc
We are interested in the third and fourth columns. These contain the username and group name that owns this le. We see that the user root and the group bin own this le. We can easily change the le owners with the chown(1) (which means change owner) and chgrp(1) (which means change group) commands. To change the le owner to daemon, we would use chown:
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Chapter 9 Filesystem Structure
chown daemon /usr/bin/wc chgrp:
To change the group owner to root, we would use

#
chgrp root /usr/bin/wc
We can also use chown to specify the user and group owners for a le:
#
chown daemon:root /usr/bin/wc
In the above example, the user could have used a period instead of a colon. The result would have been the same; however, the colon is considered better form. Use of the period is deprecated and may be removed from future versions of chown to allow usernames with periods in them. These usernames tend to be very popular with Windows Exchange Servers and are encountered most commonly in email addresses such as: mr.jones@example.com. In slackware, administrators are advised to stay away from such usernames because some scripts still use the period to indicate the user and group of a le or directory. In our example, chmod would interpret mr.jones as user mr and group jones. File ownership is a very important part of using a Linux system, even if you are the only user. You sometimes need to x ownerships on les and device nodes.
9.2 Permissions
Permissions are the other important part of the multiuser aspects of the lesystem. With these, you can change who can read, write, and execute les. The permission information is stored as four octal digits, each specifying a different set of permissions. There are owner permissions, group permissions, and world permissions. The fourth octal digit is used to store special information such as set user ID, set group ID, and the sticky bit. The octal values assigned to the permission modes are (they also have letters associated with them that are displayed by programs such as ls and can be used by chmod):
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Chapter 9 Filesystem Structure Table 9-1. Octal Permission Values Permission Type sticky bit set user ID set group ID read write execute Octal Value 1 4 2 4 2 1 Letter Value t s s r w x
You add the octal values for each permission group. For example, if you want the group permissions to be read and write, you would use 6 in the group portion of the permission information.
bashs
%
default permissions are:

bin 477692 Mar 21 19:57 /bin/bash
ls -l /bin/bash -rwxr-xr-x 1 root
The rst dash would be replaced with a d if this was a directory. The three permission groups (owner, group, and world) are displayed next. We see that the owner has read, write, and execute permissions (rwx). The group has only read and execute (r-x). And everyone else has only read and execute (r-x). How would we set permissions on another le to resemble bashs? First, lets make an example le:
touch /tmp/example % ls -l /tmp/example -rw-rw-r--- 1 david
%
users
0 Apr 19 11:21 /tmp/example
We will use chmod(1) (which means change mode) to set the permissions on the example le. Add the octal numbers for the permissions you want. For the owner to have read, write, and execute, we would have a value of 7. Read and execute would have 5. Run those together and pass them to chmod like this:
%
chmod 755 /tmp/example
113
% ls -l /tmp/example -rwxr-xr-x 1 david
users
0 Apr 19 11:21 /tmp/example
Now you may be thinking, Why didnt it just create a le with those permissions in the rst place? Well the answer is simple. bash includes a nice little built-in called umask. This is included with most Unix shells as well, and controls what le permissions are assigned to newly created les. We discussed bash built-ins to some degree in Section 8.3.1. umask takes a little getting used to. It works very similar to chmod, only in reverse. You specify the octal values you do not wish to have present in newly created les. The default umask value is 0022.
umask 0022 % umask 0077 % touch tempfile % ls -l tempfile -rw-------- 1 david
%
users
0 Apr 19 11:21 tempfile
See the man page for bash for more information. To set special permissions with chmod, add the numbers together and place them in the rst column. For example, to make it set user ID and set group ID, we use 6 as the rst column:
chmod 6755 /tmp/example % ls -l /tmp/example -rwsr-sr-x 1 david users
%
0 Apr 19 11:21 /tmp/example chmod.
If the octal values confuse you, you can use letters with groups are represented as: Owner Group World All of the above u g o a
The permission
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Chapter 9 Filesystem Structure To do the above, we would have to use several command lines:
chmod a+rx /tmp/example chmod u+w /tmp/example % chmod ug+s /tmp/example
% %
Some people prefer the letters over the numbers. Either way will result in the same set of permissions. The octal format is often faster, and the one you see most often used in shell scripts. Sometimes the letters are more powerful however. For example, theres no easy way to change one group of permissions while preserving the other groups on les and directories when using the octal format. This is trivial with the letters.
% ls -l /tmp/ -rwxr-xr-x 1 alan users -rwxr-x--1 alan users ----r-xr-x 1 alan users % chmod g-rwx /tmp/example? -rwx---r-x 1 alan users -rwx-----1 alan users -------r-x 1 alan users
0 Apr 19 11:21 /tmp/example0 0 Apr 19 11:21 /tmp/example1 0 Apr 19 11:21 /tmp/example2 0 Apr 19 11:21 /tmp/example0 0 Apr 19 11:21 /tmp/example1 0 Apr 19 11:21 /tmp/example2
We mentioned set user ID and set group ID permissions in several places above. You may be wondering what this is. Normally when you run a program, it is operating under your user account. That is, it has all the permissions that you as a user have. The same is true for the group. When you run a program, it executes under your current group. With set user ID permissions, you can force the program to always run as the program owner (such as root). Set group ID is the same, but for the group. Be careful with this, set user ID and set group ID programs can open major security holes on your system. If you frequently set user ID programs that are owned by root, you are allowing anyone to run that program and run it as root. Since root has no restrictions on the system, you can see how this would pose a major security problem. In short, its not bad to use set user ID and set group ID permissions, just use common sense.
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9.3 Links
Links are pointers between les. With links, you can have les exist in many locations and be accessible by many names. There are two types of links: hard and soft. Hard links are names for a particular le. They can only exist within a single lesystem and are only removed when the real name is removed from the system. These are useful in some cases, but many users nd the soft link to be more versatile. The soft link, also called a symbolic link, can point to a le outside of its lesystem. It is actually a small le containing the information it needs. You can add and remove soft links without affecting the actual le. And since a symbolic link is actually a small le containing its own information, they can even point at a directory. Its #* ( ( - actually be a symbolic link to - for example. rather common to have Links do not have their own set of permissions or ownerships, but instead reect those of the le they point to. Slackware uses mostly soft links. Here is a common example:
ls -l /bin/sh lrwxrwxrwx 1 root
%
root
4 Apr
6 12:34 /bin/sh -> bash
The sh shell under Slackware is actually bash. Removing links is done using rm. The ln command is used to create links. These commands will be discussed in more depth in Chapter 10. Its very important to be careful about symlinks in particular. Once, I was working on a machine that was consistently failing to back-up to tape each night. Two symlinks had been made to directories beneath each other. The back-up software kept appending those same directories to the tape until it was out of space. Normally, a set of checks will prevent creating a symlink in this situation, but ours was a special case.
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9.4 Mounting Devices

As was previously discussed in Section 4.1.1, all the drives and devices in your computer are one big lesystem. Various hard drive partitions, CD-ROMs, and oppies are all placed in the same tree. In order to attach these drives to the lesystem so that you can access them, you have to use the mount(1) and umount(1) commands. Some devices are automatically mounted when you boot up your computer. These )"' *+ are listed in the le. Anything that you want to be mounted automatically gets an entry in that le. For other devices, youll have to issue a command every time you want to use the device.
g
1 FbW e " &*+
Lets look at an example of the

cat /etc/fstab /dev/sda1 / /dev/sda2 /usr/local /dev/sda4 /home /dev/sdb1 swap /dev/sdb3 /export none /dev/pts none /proc /dev/fd0 /mnt /dev/cdrom /mnt/cdrom
%
le:
defaults defaults defaults defaults defaults gid=5,mode=620 defaults defaults ro 1 1 1 0 1 0 0 0 0 1 1 1 0 1 0 0 0 0
ext2 ext2 ext2 swap ext2 devpts proc ext2 iso9660
The rst column is the device name. In this case, the devices are ve partitions spread out across two SCSI hard drives, two special lesystems that dont need a device, a oppy, and a CD-ROM drive. The second column is where the device will be mounted. This needs to be a directory name, except in the case of a swap partition. The third column is the lesystem type of the device. For normal Linux lesystems, this will be ext2 (second extended lesystem). CD-ROM drives are iso9660, and Windows-based devices will either be msdos or vfat.
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Chapter 9 Filesystem Structure The fourth column is a listing of options that apply to the mounted lesystem. defaults is ne for just about everything. However, read-only devices should be given "' *+ the ro ag. There are a lot of options that can be used. Check the (5) man page for more information. The last two columns are used by fsck and other commands that need to manipulate the devices. Check the man page for that information as well. When you install Slackware Linux, the setup program will build much of the le.
" &*+
mount and umount

Attaching another device to your lesystem is easy. All you have to do is use the mount command, along with a few options. Using mount can simplied if the device " &*+ has an entry in the le. For example, lets say that I wanted to mount my CD-ROM drive and that my fstab le looked like the example from the previous section. I would call mount like so:
%
mount /cdrom
"' *+
Since there is an entry in for that mount point, mount knows what options to use. If there wasnt an entry for that device, I would have to use several options for mount:
%
mount -t iso9660 -o ro /dev/cdrom /cdrom

"' *+
That command line includes the same information as the example did, but well go over all the parts anyways. The -t iso9660 is the lesystem type of the device to mount. In this case, it would be the iso9660 lesystem which is what CD-ROM drives most commonly use. The -o ro tells mount to mount the device read-only. # &

- is the name of the device to mount, and - is the location on the The lesystem to mount the drive. Before you can remove a oppy, CD-ROM, or other removable device that is currently mounted, youll have to unmount it. That is done using the umount command.
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Chapter 9 Filesystem Structure Dont ask where the n went because we couldnt tell you. You can use either the mounted device or the mount point as the argument to umount. For example, if you wanted to unmount the CD-ROM from the previous example, either of these commands would work:
umount /dev/cdrom # umount /cdrom
#
9.5 NFS Mounts

NFS stands for the Network Filesystem. It is not really part of the real lesystem, but can be used to add parts to the mounted lesystem. Large Unix environments often times share the same programs, sets of home directories, and mail spool. The problem of getting the same copy to each machine is solved with NFS. We can use NFS to share one set of home directories between all of the workstations. The workstations then mount that NFS share as if it were on their own machines. See Section 5.6.2 and the man pages for information.
=)(
)'
(5), nfsd(8), and mountd(8) for more
119
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Chapter 10
Handling Files and Directories

Linux aims to the most Unix-like it can be. Traditionally, Unix operating systems have been command-line oriented. We do have a graphical user interface in Slackware, but the command-line is still the main level of control for the system. Therefore, it is important to understand some of the basic le management commands. The following sections explain the common le management commands and provide examples of how they are used. There are many other commands, but these will help you get started. Also, the commands are only briey discussed here. You will nd more detail in the accompanying man pages for each command.
10.1 Navigation : ls, cd , and pwd

ls
This command lists les in a directory. Windows and DOS users will notice its similarity to the dir command. By itself, ls(1) will list the les in the current directory. To see whats in your root directory, you could issue these commands:
cd / % ls bin cdr boot cdrom
%
dev etc
home lib
lost+found mnt
proc root
sbin suncd
tmp usr
var vmlinuz
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Chapter 10 Handling Files and Directories The problem a lot of people have with that output is that you cannot easily tell what is a directory and what is a le. Some users prefer that ls add a type identier to each listing, like this:
% ls -FC bin/ cdr/ boot/ cdrom/
dev/ etc/
home/ lib/
lost+found/ mnt/
proc/ root/
sbin/ suncd/
tmp/ usr/
var/ vmlinuz
Directories get a slash at the end of the name, executable les get an asterisk at the end of the name, and so on.
ls
can also be used to get other statistics on les. For example, to see the creation dates, owners, and permissions, you would look at a long listing:
%
ls -l drwxr-xr-x drwxr-xr-x drwxr-xr-x drwxr-xr-x drwxr-xr-x drwxr-xr-x drwxr-xr-x drwxr-xr-x drwxr-xr-x drwxr-xr-x dr-xr-xr-x drwxr-x--x drwxr-xr-x drwxr-xr-x drwxrwxrwt drwxr-xr-x drwxr-xr-x
2 2 2 14 4 10 8 3 2 2 62 12 2 5 4 21 18
root root root root root root root root root root root root root root root root root
bin root root root root root root root root root root root bin root root root root
4096 4096 4096 6144 28672 4096 4096 4096 16384 4096 0 4096 4096 2048 487424 4096 4096
May Feb Feb Oct Mar Mar Mar Jan Nov Oct Mar Feb Feb Oct Mar Aug Mar
7 24 18 23 5 8 8 23 1 6 4 26 17 25 7 24 8
09:11 03:55 01:10 18:37 18:01 03:32 03:31 21:29 08:53 12:47 15:32 02:06 02:02 10:51 20:42 03:04 03:32
bin/ boot/ cdr/ cdrom/ dev/ etc/ home/ lib/ lost+found/ mnt/ proc/ root/ sbin/ suncd/ tmp/ usr/ var/
Suppose you want to get a listing of the hidden les in the current directory. The following command will do just that.
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Chapter 10 Handling Files and Directories
ls -a . .. .pwrchute_tmp
%
bin boot cdr
cdrom dev etc
home lib lost+found
mnt proc root
sbin suncd tmp
usr var vmlinuz
Files beginning with a period (called dot les) are hidden when you run ls. You will only see them if you pass the -a option. There are many more options that can be found in the online manual page. Dont forget that you can combine options that you pass to ls.
cd
The cd command is used to change working directories. You simply type cd followed by the path name to change to. Here are some examples:
darkstar:~$ cd /bin darkstar:/bin$ cd usr bash: cd: usr: No such file or directory darkstar:/bin$ cd /usr darkstar:/usr$ ls bin darkstar:/usr$ cd bin darkstar:/usr/bin$
Notice that without the preceding slash, it tries to change to a directory in the current directory. Also executing cd with no options will move you to your home directory. The cd command is not like the other commands. It is a builtin shell command. Shell builtins are discussed in Section 8.3.1. This may not make any sense to you right now. Basically it means there is no man page for this command. Instead, you have to use the shell help. Like this:
%
help cd
It will display the options for cd and how to use them.
123
pwd
The pwd command is used to show your current location. To use the just type pwd. For example:
cd /bin % pwd /bin % cd /usr % cd bin % pwd /usr/bin
%
pwd
command
10.2 Pagers: more , less, and most

more
is what we call a pager utility. Oftentimes the output of a particular command is too big to t on one screen. The individual commands do not know how to t their output to separate screens. They leave this job to the pager utility. The more command breaks the output into individual screens and waits for you to press the space bar before continuing on to the next screen. Pressing the enter key will advance the output one line. Here is a good example:
cd /usr/bin % ls -l
%
more(1)
That should scroll for a while. To break up the output screen by screen, just pipe it through more:
%
ls -l | more
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Chapter 10 Handling Files and Directories That is the pipe character (shift backslash). The pipe is short for saying take the output of ls and feed it into more. You can pipe just about anything through the more command, not just ls. Piping is also covered in Section 8.2.3.
less
The more command is quite handy, but often you will nd that you have advanced past the screen you wanted. more does not provide a way to go back. The less(1) command provides this functionality. It is used in the same way as the more command, so the previous examples apply here too. So, less is more than more. Joost Kremers puts it this way:
is more, but more more than more is, so more is less less, so use more less if you want less more.
less
most
Where more and less leave off, most(1) picks back up. If less is more than more, most is more than less. Whereas the other pagers can only display one le at a time, most is capable of viewing any number of les, as long as each les window is at least 2 lines long. most has a lot of options, check the man page for full details.
10.3 Simple Output: cat and echo

cat
is short for concatenate. It was originally designed to merge text les into one, but can be used for many other purposes. To merge two or more les into one, you simply list the les after the cat command and then redirect the new output to a le. cat works with standard input and standard
cat(1)
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Chapter 10 Handling Files and Directories output, so you have to use the shell redirection characters. For example:
%
cat file1 file2 file3 > bigfile

"' "')n
This command takes the contents of , The new output is sent to standard out.
, and
")s
and merges it all together.
One can also use cat to display les. Many people cat text les through the more or less commands, like this:
%
cat file1 | more

"''
le and pipe it through the That will display the only get one screen at a time. Another common use for cat, like this:
%
more
command so that you
cat
is copying les. You can copy any le around with
cat /bin/bash > ~/mybash

w+ *&%
The /bin/bash program is copied to your home directory and named cat
has many uses and the ones discussed here are just a few. Since cat makes extensive use of standard input and standard output, it is ideal for use in shell scripts or part of other complex commands.
echo
The echo(1) command displays the specied text on the screen. You specify the string to display after the echo command. By default echo will display the string and print a newline character after it. You can pass the -n option to suppress the printing of the newline. The -e option will cause echo to search for escape characters in the string and execute them.
126
10.4 Creation: touch and mkdir

touch
is used to change the timestamp on a le. You can change access timestamps and modication timestamps with this command. If the le specied does not exist, touch will create a zero length le with the name specied. To mark a le with the current system time, you would issue this command:
ls -al file1 -rw-r--r-1 root % touch file1 % ls -al file1 -rw-r--r-1 root
%
touch(1)
root
9779 Feb
7 21:41 file1
root
9779 Feb
8 09:17 file1
There are several options for touch, including options to specify which timestamp to modify, the time to use, and many more. The online manual page discusses these in detail.
mkdir
will create a new directory. You simply specify the directory to create %)*{ directory in the current direcwhen you run mkdir. This example creates the tory:
%
mkdir(1)
mkdir hejaz
You can also specify a path, like this:

%
mkdir /usr/local/hejaz
The -p option will tell mkdir to make any parent directories. The above example '&)
* will fail if /usr/local does not exist. The -p option will create and )
*%)*{ :
127
mkdir -p /usr/local/hejaz
10.5 Copy and Move

cp
copies les. DOS users will notice its similarity to the copy command. There are many options for cp , so you should have a look at the man page before using it. A common use is to use cp to copy a le from one location to another. For example:
%
cp(1)
cp hejaz /tmp
%)*{
This copies the
le from the current directory to the
-
directory.
Many users prefer to keep the timestamps preserved, as in this example:

%
cp -a hejaz /tmp
This ensures that the timestamps are not modied in the copy. To recursively copy the contents of a directory to another directory, you would issue this command:
%
cp -R mydir /tmp
(
That will copy the mydir directory to the
directory.
Also if you wish to copy a directory or a le and keep all its old permissions and time stamps and keep it exactly the same use cp -p.
ls -l file -rw-r--r-1 root % cp -p file /tmp % ls -l /tmp/file -rw-r--r-1 root
%
vlad
4 Jan
1 15:27 file
vlad
4 Jan
1 15:27 file
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Chapter 10 Handling Files and Directories has many more options that are discussed in detail in the online manual page.
cp
mv
mv(1)
%
moves les from one place to another. Sounds simple enough doesnt it?
mv oldfile /tmp/newfile
mv
has a few useful command line options that are detailed in the man page. In practice, mv is almost never used with commandline options.
10.6 Deletion: rm and rmdir

rm
rm(1)
removes les and directory trees. DOS users will notice the similarity to both the del and deltree commands. rm can be very dangerous if you do not watch yourself. While it is sometimes possible to retrieve a recently deleted le, it can be complicated (and potentially costly) and is beyond the scope of this book. To remove a single le, specify its name when you run rm:
%
rm file1
If the le has write permissions removed, you may get a permission denied error message. To force removal of the le no matter what, pass the -f option, like this:
%
rm -f file1
To remove an entire directory, you use the -r and -f options together. This is a good example of how to delete the entire contents of your hard drive. You really dont want to do this. But heres the command anyway:
129
rm -rf /
Be very careful with rm; you can shoot yourself in the foot. There are several command line options, which are discussed in detail in the online manual page.
rmdir
removes directories from the lesystem. The directory must be empty before it can be removed. The syntax is simply:
%
rmdir(1)
rmdir <directory >

%*{
This example will remove the

%
subdirectory in the current working directory:
rmdir hejaz
If that directory does not exist, rmdir will tell you. You can also specify a full path to a directory to remove, as this example shows:
%
rmdir /tmp/hejaz
%*{
That example will try to remove the
directory inside the
-
directory.
-p
You can also remove a directory and all of its parent directories by passing the option.
%
rmdir -p /tmp/hejaz
% *{ (
This will rst try to remove the directory inside - . If that is successful, it ( will try to remove - . rmdir will continue this until an error is encountered or the entire tree specied is removed.
130
10.7 Aliasing les with ln

is used to create links between les. These links can be either hard links or soft (symbolic) links. The differences between the two kinds of links were discussed #* '*) (s in Section 9.3. If you wanted to make a symbolic link to the directory and place the link in your home directory, you would do this:
%
ln(1)
ln -s /var/media/mp3 ~/mp3
The -s option tells ln to make a symbolic link. The next option is the target of the link, and the nal option is what to call the link. In this case, it will just make a le (s #* *) (s . You can call the link called - in your home directory that points to itself whatever you want by just changing the last option. Making a hard link is just as simple. All you have to do is leave off the -s option. Hard links may not normally refer to directories or span le systems, however. To '&+ * + ) to , simply type the following: create a hard link #
ln /usr/bin/mutt /usr/bin/email
131
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Chapter 11
Process Control
Every program that is running is called a process. These processes range from things like the X Window System to system programs (daemons) that are started when the computer boots. Every process runs as a particular user. Processes that are started at boot time usually run as root or nobody. Processes that you start will run as you. Processes started as other users will run as those users. You have control over all the processes that you start. Additionally, root has control over all processes on the system, including those started by other users. Processes can be controlled and monitored through several programs, as well as some shell commands.
11.1 Backgrounding
Programs started from the command line start up in the foreground. This allows you to see all the output of the program and interact with it. However, there are several occasions when youd like the program to run without taking up your terminal. This is called running the program in the background, and there are a few ways to do it. The rst way to background a process is by adding an ampersand to the command line when you start the program. For example, assume you wanted to use the command line mp3 player amp to play a directory full of mp3s, but you needed to do something else on the same terminal. The following command line would start up amp in the background:
%
amp *.mp3 &
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Chapter 11 Process Control The program will run as normal, and you are returned to a prompt. The other way to background a process is to do so while it is running. First, start up a program. While it is running, hit Control+z. This suspends the process. A suspended process is basically paused. It momentarily stops running, but can be started up again at any time. Once you have suspended a process, you are returned to a prompt. You can background the process by typing:
%
bg
Now the suspended process is running in the background.
11.2 Foregrounding
If you need to interact with a backgrounded process, you can bring it back into the foreground. If youve only got one backgrounded process, you can bring it back by typing:
%
fg
If the program is not done running, the program will take control over you terminal and you will not be returned to a prompt. Sometimes, the program will nish running while backgrounded. In this instance, youll get a message like this:
[1]+ Done /bin/ls $LS_OPTIONS
That tells you that the backgrounded process (in this case ls - not terribly interesting) has completed. It is possible to have several processes backgrounded at once. When this happens, youll need to know which process you want to bring back to the foreground. Just typing fg will foreground the process that was last backgrounded. What if you had a whole list of processes in the background? Luckily, bash includes a command to list all the processes. Its called jobs and gives output like so:
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Chapter 11 Process Control
jobs [1] Stopped [2]- Stopped [3]+ Stopped

%
vim amp man ps
This shows you a list of all the processes that are backgrounded. As you can see, they are all stopped. This means that the processes are suspended. The number is a sort of ID for all the backgrounded processes. The ID with a plus sign beside it (man ps) is the process that will be foregrounded if you just type fg. If you wanted to foreground vim, you would type:
%
fg 1
and vim would spring back up to the console. Backgrounding processes can be very useful if you only have one terminal open over a dialup connection. You can have several programs running on that one terminal, periodically switching back and forth between them.
11.3 ps
So now you know how to switch back and forth between several processes that youve started from the command line. And you also know that there are lots of processes running all the time. So how do you list all of these programs? Well, you make use of the ps(1) command. This command has a lot of options, so well only cover the most important ones here. For a complete listing, see the man page for ps. Man pages are covered in-depth in Section 2.1.1. Simply typing ps will get you a listing of the programs running on your terminal. This incudes the foreground processes (which include whatever shell you are using, and of course, ps itself). Also listed are backgrounded processes you may have running. Many times, that will be a very short listing:
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Chapter 11 Process Control Figure 11-1. Basic ps output

%
ps PID TTY 7923 ttyp0 8059 ttyp0
TIME CMD 00:00:00 bash 00:00:00 ps
Even though this is not a lot of processes, the information is very typical. Youll get the same columns using regular ps no matter how many processes are running. So what does it all mean? Well, the PID is the process ID. All running processes are given a unique identier which ranges between 1 and 32767. Each process is assigned the next free PID. When a process quits (or is killed, as you will see in the next section), it gives up its PID. When the max PID is reached, the next free one will wrap back around to the lowest free one. The TTY column indicates which terminal the process is running on. Doing a plain ps will only list all the programs running on the current terminal, so all the processes give the same information in the TTY column. As you can see, both processes listed )w(p . This indicates that they are either running remotely or from an are running on X terminal of some variety. The TIME column indicated how much CPU time the process has been running. This is different from the actual amount of time that a process runs. Remember that Linux is a multitasking operating system. There are many processes running all the time, and these processes each get a small portion of the processors time. So, the TIME column should show much less time for each process than it actually takes to run. If you see more than several minutes in the TIME column, it could mean that something is wrong. Finally, the CMD column shows what the program actually is. It only lists the base name of the program, not any command line options or similar information. To get that information, youll need to use one of the many options to ps. Well discuss that shortly. You can get a complete listing of the processes running on your system using the
136
Chapter 11 Process Control right combination of options. This will probably result in a long listing of processes (fty-ve on my laptop as I write this sentence), so Ill abbreviate the output:
%
ps -ax PID TTY 1 ? 2 ? 3 ? 4 ? 5 ? 11 ? 30 ? 50 ? 54 ? 57 ? 59 ? 61 ? 63 ? 65 ? 67 ? 69 ? 77 ? 79 ? 94 ? 106 tty1 108 tty3 109 tty4 110 tty5 111 tty6 [output cut]
STAT S SW SW SW SW S SW S S S S S S S S S S S S S SW SW SW SW
TIME 0:03 0:13 0:14 0:00 0:17 0:00 0:01 0:00 0:00 0:00 0:00 0:04 0:00 0:00 0:00 0:00 0:00 0:01 0:00 0:08 0:00 0:00 0:00 0:00
COMMAND init [3] [kflushd] [kupdate] [kpiod] [kswapd] /sbin/kerneld [cardmgr] /sbin/rpc.portmap /usr/sbin/syslogd /usr/sbin/klogd -c 3 /usr/sbin/inetd /usr/local/sbin/sshd /usr/sbin/rpc.mountd /usr/sbin/rpc.nfsd /usr/sbin/crond -l10 /usr/sbin/atd -b 15 -l 1 /usr/sbin/apmd gpm -m /dev/mouse -t ps2 /usr/sbin/automount /auto file /etc/auto.misc -bash [agetty] [agetty] [agetty] [agetty]
Most of these processes are started at boot time on most systems. Ive made a few modications to my system, so your mileage will most likely vary. However, you will see most of these processes on your system too. As you can see, these options display command line options to the running processes. Recently, a kernel vulnerability in ptrace facilitated a x which no longer shows command line options for many running processes. These are now listed in brackets like PIDs 108 through 110. It also brings up a few more columns and some other interesting output. First, youll notice that most of these processes are listed as running on tty ?. Those are not attached to any particular terminal. This is most common with daemons, which are processes which run without attaching to any particular terminal.
137
Chapter 11 Process Control Common daemons are sendmail, BIND, apache, and NFS. They typically listen for some request from a client, and return information to it upon request. Second, there is a new column: STAT. It shows the status of the process. S stands for sleeping: the process is waiting for something to happen. Z stands for a zombied process. A zombied processes is one whose parent has died, leaving the child processes behind. This is not a good thing. D stands for a process that has entered an uninterruptible sleep. Often, these processes refuse to die even when passed a SIGKILL. You can read more about SIGKILL later in the next section on kill . W stands for paging. A dead process is marked with an X. A process marked T is traced, or stopped. R means that the process is runable. If you want to see even more information about the running processes, try this out:
%
ps -aux USER PID %CPU %MEM root 1 0.0 0.0 root 2 0.0 0.0 root 3 0.0 0.0 root 4 0.0 0.0 root 5 0.0 0.0 root 11 0.0 0.0 root 30 0.0 0.0 bin 50 0.0 0.0 root 54 0.0 0.1 root 57 0.0 0.1 root 59 0.0 0.0 root 61 0.0 0.2 root 63 0.0 0.0 root 65 0.0 0.0 root 67 0.0 0.2 root 77 0.0 0.2 root 79 0.0 0.1 root 94 0.0 0.2 chris 106 0.0 0.5 root 108 0.0 0.0 root 109 0.0 0.0 root 110 0.0 0.0 root 111 0.0 0.0 [output cut]
VSZ 344 0 0 0 0 1044 1160 1076 1360 1276 1332 1540 1796 1812 1172 1048 1100 1396 1820 1048 1048 1048 1048
RSS 80 0 0 0 0 44 0 120 192 152 60 312 72 68 260 316 152 280 680 0 0 0 0
TTY ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? tty1 tty3 tty4 tty5 tty6
STAT S SW SW SW SW S SW S S S S S S S S S S S S SW SW SW SW
START Mar02 Mar02 Mar02 Mar02 Mar02 Mar02 Mar02 Mar02 Mar02 Mar02 Mar02 Mar02 Mar02 Mar02 Mar02 Mar02 Mar02 Mar02 Mar02 Mar02 Mar02 Mar02 Mar02
TIME 0:03 0:13 0:14 0:00 0:17 0:00 0:01 0:00 0:00 0:00 0:00 0:04 0:00 0:00 0:00 0:00 0:01 0:00 0:08 0:00 0:00 0:00 0:00
COMMAND init [3] [kflushd] [kupdate] [kpiod] [kswapd] /sbin/kerneld [cardmgr] /sbin/rpc.port /usr/sbin/sysl /usr/sbin/klog /usr/sbin/inet /usr/local/sbi /usr/sbin/rpc. /usr/sbin/rpc. /usr/sbin/cron /usr/sbin/apmd gpm /usr/sbin/auto -bash [agetty] [agetty] [agetty] [agetty]
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Chapter 11 Process Control Thats a whole lot of information. Basically, it adds information including what user started the process, how much of the system resources the process is using (the %CPU, %MEM, VSZ, and RSS columns), and on what date the process was started. Obviously, thats a lot of information that could come in handy for a system administrator. It also brings up another point: the information now goes off the edge of the screen so that you cannot see it all. The -w option will force ps to wrap long lines. Its not terribly pretty, but it does the job. Youve now got the complete listings for each process. Theres even more information that you can display about each process. Check out the very in-depth man page for ps. However, the options shown above are the most popular ones and will be the ones you need to use the most often.
11.4 kill
On occasion, programs misbehave and youll need to put them back in line. The program for this kind of administration is called kill(1), and it can be used for manipulating processes in several ways. The most obvious use of kill is to kill off a process. Youll need to do this if a program has run away and is using up lots of system resources, or if youre just sick of it running. In order to kill off a process, youll need to know its PID or its name. To get the PID, use the ps command as was discussed in the last section. For example, to kill off process 4747, youd issue the following:
%
kill 4747
Note that youll have to be the owner of the process in order to kill it. This is a security feature. If you were allowed to kill off processes started by other users, it would be possible to do all sorts of malicious things. Of course, root can kill off any process on the system. Theres another variety of the kill command called killall(1). This program does exactly what it says: it kills all the running processes that have a certain name. If you wanted to kill off all the running vim processes, you could type the following
139
Chapter 11 Process Control command:

%
killall vim
Any and all vim processes you have running will die off. Doing this as root would kill off all the vim processes running for all users. This brings up an interesting way to kick everyone (including yourself) off the system:
#
killall bash
Sometimes a regular kill doesnt get the job done. Certain processes will not die with a kill. Youll need to use a more potent form. If that pesky PID 4747 wasnt responding to your kill request, you could do the following:
%
kill -9 4747
That will almost certainly cause process 4747 to die. You can do the same thing with killall. What this is doing is sending a different signal to the process. A regular kill sends a SIGTERM (terminate) signal to the process, which tells it to nish what its doing, clean up, and exit. kill -9 sends a SIGKILL (kill) signal to the process, which essentially drops it. The process is not allowed to clean-up, and sometimes bad things like data corruption could occur by killing something with a SIGKILL. Theres a whole list of signals at your disposal. You can get a listing of signals by typing the following:
%
kill -l 1) SIGHUP 5) SIGTRAP 9) SIGKILL 13) SIGPIPE 18) SIGCONT 22) SIGTTOU 26) SIGVTALRM 30) SIGPWR
2) 6) 10) 14) 19) 23) 27)
SIGINT SIGABRT SIGUSR1 SIGALRM SIGSTOP SIGURG SIGPROF
3) 7) 11) 15) 20) 24) 28)
SIGQUIT SIGBUS SIGSEGV SIGTERM SIGTSTP SIGXCPU SIGWINCH
4) 8) 12) 17) 21) 25) 29)
SIGILL SIGFPE SIGUSR2 SIGCHLD SIGTTIN SIGXFSZ SIGIO
The number must be used for kill, while the name minus the leading SIG can be used with killall. Heres another example:
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Chapter 11 Process Control
killall -KILL vim
A nal use of kill is to restart a process. Sending a SIGHUP will cause most processes to re-read their conguration les. This is especially helpful for telling system processes to re-read their cong les after editing.
11.5 top
Finally, theres a command you can use to display updating information about the processes running on the system. This command is called top(1), and is started like so:
%
top
This will display a full screen of information about the processes running on the system, as well as some overall information about the system. This includes load average, number of processes, the CPU status, free memory information, and details about processes including PID, user, priority, CPU and memory usage information, running time, and program name.
6:47pm up 1 day, 18:01, 1 user, load average: 0.02, 0.07, 0.02 61 processes: 59 sleeping, 2 running, 0 zombie, 0 stopped CPU states: 2.8% user, 3.1% system, 0.0% nice, 93.9% idle Mem: 257992K av, 249672K used, 8320K free, 51628K shrd, 78248K buff Swap: 32764K av, 136K used, 32628K free, 82600K cached PID USER PRI 112 root 12 4947 david 15 3398 david 7 4946 root 12 121 david 4 115 david 3 4948 david 16 1 root 1 189 david 1 4734 david 0 [output cut] NI SIZE RSS 0 19376 18M 0 2136 2136 0 20544 20M 0 1040 1040 0 796 796 0 2180 2180 0 776 776 0 176 176 0 6256 6156 0 1164 1164 SHARE 2468 1748 3000 836 644 1452 648 148 4352 916 STAT R S S R S S S S S S LIB %CPU %MEM TIME COMMAND 0 3.7 7.5 55:53 X 0 2.3 0.8 0:00 screenshot 0 1.5 7.9 0:14 gimp 0 1.5 0.4 0:00 top 0 1.1 0.3 25:37 wmSMPmon 0 0.3 0.8 1:35 wmaker 0 0.3 0.3 0:00 xwd 0 0.1 0.0 0:13 init 0 0.1 2.4 3:16 licq 0 0.1 0.4 0:00 rxvt
141
Chapter 11 Process Control Its called top because the most CPU intensive programs will be listed at the top. An interesting note is that top will be listed rst on most inactive (and some active) systems because of its CPU utilization. However, top is quite useful for determining what program is misbehaving and needs to be killed off. But suppose you only want a list of your own processes, or the processes of some other user. The processes you want to see might not be among the most CPU intensive programs currently running. The -u option allows you to specify a username or UID and monitor only those processes owned by that UID.
top -u alan PID USER 3622 alan 3739 alan 3518 alan 3529 alan 3544 alan 3548 alan 3551 alan 3553 alan 3555 alan 3557 alan 3559 alan 3565 alan 3568 alan 3572 alan 3574 alan 3575 alan 3576 alan
%
PR 13 13 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9
NI 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
VIRT 11012 1012 1312 984 640 8324 7084 2232 2552 2740 6496 1740 7052 11412 12148 12148 12148
RES 10m 1012 1312 984 640 8320 7084 2232 2552 2740 6492 1740 7052 11m 11m 11m 11m
SHR 6956 804 1032 848 568 6044 1968 380 1948 2224 5004 1440 4960 7992 8780 8780 8780
S %CPU %MEM S 1.0 2.1 R 0.3 0.2 S 0.0 0.3 S 0.0 0.2 S 0.0 0.1 S 0.0 1.6 S 0.0 1.4 S 0.0 0.4 S 0.0 0.5 S 0.0 0.5 S 0.0 1.3 S 0.0 0.3 S 0.0 1.4 S 0.0 2.2 S 0.0 2.4 S 0.0 2.4 S 0.0 2.4
TIME+ 0:03.66 0:00.06 0:00.09 0:00.00 0:00.00 0:00.30 0:00.50 0:00.05 0:00.10 0:00.05 0:00.31 0:00.28 0:02.28 0:01.58 0:00.64 0:00.00 0:00.00
COMMAND gnome-terminal top bash startx xinit gnome-session gconfd-2 esd bonobo-activati gnome-smproxy gnome-settingsxscreensaver metacity gnome-panel nautilus nautilus nautilus
As you can see, Im currently running X, top, a gnome-terminal (in which Im writing this) and many other X-related processes which take up the most CPU time for me. This is a good way to monitor how hard your users are working your system.
top
also supports monitoring processes by their PID, ignoring idle and zombied processes, and many other options. The best place to get a handle on these options is the man page for top.
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Chapter 12
Essential System Administration

Whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa.... I know what youre thinking. Im not a system administrator! I dont even want to be a system administrator! Fact is, you are the administrator of any computers for which you have the root password. This might be your desktop box with one or two users, or it might be a big server with several hundred. Regardless, youll need to know how to manage users, and how to shut down the system safely. These tasks seem simple, but they have some quirks to keep in mind.
12.1 Users and Groups

As mentioned in Chapter 8, you shouldnt normally use your system logged in as root. Instead, you should create a normal user account for everyday use, and use the root account only for system administration tasks. To create a user, you can either use the tools supplied with Slackware, or you can edit the password les by hand.
Supplied Scripts
The easiest way to manage users and groups is with the supplied scripts and programs. Slackware includes the programs adduser, userdel(8), chfn(1), chsh(1), and passwd(1) for dealing with users. The commands groupadd(8), groupdel(8),
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Chapter 12 Essential System Administration and groupmod(8) are for dealing with groups. With the exception of chfn, chsh, and passwd, these programs are generally only run as root, and are therefore located in '&&+ + . chfn, chsh, and passwd can be run by anyone, and are located in . Users can be added with the adduser program. Well start out by going through the whole procedure, showing all the questions that are asked and a brief description of what everything means. The default answer is in the brackets, and can be chosen for almost all the questions, unless you really want to change something.
adduser Login name for new user []: jellyd
#
This is the name that the user will use to login. Traditionally, login names are eight characters or fewer, and all lowercase characters. (You may use more than eight characters, or use digits, but avoid doing so unless you have a fairly important reason.) You can also provide the login name as an argument on the command line:
#
adduser jellyd
In either case, after providing the login name, adduser will prompt for the user ID:
User ID (UID) [ defaults to next available ]:
The user ID (UID) is how ownerships are really determined in Linux. Each user has a unique number, starting at 1000 in Slackware. You can pick a UID for the new user, or you can just let adduser assign the user the next free one.
Initial group [users]:
All users are placed into the users group by default. You might want to place the new user into a different group, but it is not recommended unless you know what youre doing.
Additional groups (comma separated) []:
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Chapter 12 Essential System Administration This question allows you to place the new user into additional groups. It is possible for a user to be in several groups at the same time. This is useful if you have established groups for things like modifying web site les, playing games, and so on. For example, some sites dene group wheel as the only group that can use the su command. Or, a default Slackware installation uses the sys group for users authorized to play sounds through the internal sound card.
Home directory [/home/jellyd]
Home directories default to being placed under - . If you run a very large system, its possible that you have moved the home directories to a different location (or to many locations). This step allows you to specify where the users home directory will be.
Shell [ /bin/bash ] bash
is the default shell for Slackware Linux, and will be ne for most people. If your new user comes from a Unix background, they may be familiar with a different shell. You can change their shell now, or they can change it themselves later using the chsh command.
Expiry date (YYYY-MM-DD) []:
Accounts can be set up to expire on a specied date. By default, there is no expiration date. You can change that, if youd like. This option might be useful for people running an ISP who might want to make an account expire upon a certain date, unless they receive the next years payment.
New account will be created as follows: --------------------------------------Login name: jellyd UID: [ Next available ] Initial group: users Additional groups: [ None ] Home directory: /home/jellyd Shell: /bin/bash Expiry date: [ Never ]
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Chapter 12 Essential System Administration This is it... if you want to bail out, hit Control+C. Otherwise, press ENTER to go ahead and make the account. You now see all the information that youve entered about the new account and are given the opportunity to abort the account creation. If you entered something incorrectly, you should hit Control+C and start over. Otherwise, you can hit enter and the account will be made.
Creating new account... Changing the user information for jellyd Enter the new value, or press return for the default Full Name []: Jeremy Room Number []: Smith 130 Work Phone []: Home Phone []: Other []:
All of this information is optional. You dont have to enter any of this if you dont want to, and the user can change it at any time using chfn. However, you might nd it helpful to enter at least the full name and a phone number, in case you need to get in touch with the person later.
Changing password for jellyd Enter the new password (minimum of 5, maximum of 127 characters) Please use a combination of upper and lower case letters and numbers. New password: Re-enter new password: Password changed. Account setup complete.
Youll have to enter a password for the new user. Generally, if the new user is not physically present at this point, youll just pick some default password and tell the user to change it to something more secure.
Note: Choosing a Password : Having a secure password is the rst line of defense against getting cracked. You do not want to have an easily guessed
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Chapter 12 Essential System Administration
password, because that makes it easier for someone to break into your system. Ideally, a secure password would be a random string of characters, including upper and lowercase letters, numbers, and random characters. (A tab character might not be a wise choice, depending on what kinds of computers youll be logging in from.) There are many software packages that can generate random passwords for you; search the Internet for these utilities. In general, just use common sense: dont pick a password that is someones birthday, a common phrase, something found on your desk, or anything that is easily associated with you. A password like secure1 or any other password you see in print or online is also bad.
Removing users is not difcult at all. Just run userdel with the name of the account to remove. You should verify that the user is not logged in, and that no processes are running as that user. Also, remember that once youve deleted the user, all of that users password information is gone permanently.
#
userdel jellyd
This command removes that annoying jellyd user from your system. Good rid(*. % *
. 9
)( , , and les, dance! :) The user is removed from the but doesnt remove the users home directory. If youd wanted to remove the home directory as well, you would instead use this command:
#
userdel -r jellyd
Temporarily disabling an account will be covered in the next section on passwords, since a temporary change involves changing the users password. Changing other account information is covered in Section 12.1.3. The programs to add and remove groups are very simple. groupadd will just add 9
( le with a unique group ID, while groupdel will another entry to the )9
( to add users to a specic remove the specied group. It is up to you to edit
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Chapter 12 Essential System Administration group. For example, to add a group called cvs:
#
groupadd cvs
And to remove it:

#
groupdel cvs
Changing Passwords
The passwd program changes passwords by modifying the le. This le holds all the passwords for the system in an encrypted format. In order to change your own password, you would type:
passwd Changing password for chris Old password: Enter the new password (minumum of 5, maximum of 127 characters) Please use a combination of upper and lower case letters and numbers. New password:
%
)%*
.
As you can see, you are prompted to enter your old password. It wont appear on the screen as you type it, just like when you log in. Then, you are prompted to enter the new password. passwd performs a lot of checks on your new password, and it will complain if your new password doesnt pass its checks. You can ignore its warnings if you want. You will be prompted to enter your new password a second time for conrmation. If you are root, you can also change another users password:
#
passwd ted
You will then have to go through the same procedure as above, except that you wont have to enter the users old password. (One of the many benets of being root...)
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Chapter 12 Essential System Administration If needed, you can also temporarily disable an account, and reenable it at a later time if needed. Both disabling an account and reenabling an account can be done with passwd. To disable an account, do the following as root:
#
passwd -l david
This will change davids password to something that can never match any encrypted value. You would reenable the account by using:
#
passwd -u david
Now, davids account is back to normal. Disabling an account might be useful if the user doesnt play by the rules youve set up on your system, or if theyve exported a very large copy of xeyes(1) to your X desktop.
Changing User Information

There are two pieces of information that users can change at any time: their shell and their nger information. Slackware Linux uses chsh (change shell) and chfn (change nger) to modify these values. A user can pick any shell that is listed in the le. For most people, /bin/bash will do just ne. Others might be familiar with a shell found on their system at work or school and want to use what they already know. To change your shell, use chsh:
chsh Password: Changing the login shell for chris Enter the new value, or press return for the default Login Shell [/bin/bash]:
%
)&%)
After entering your password, enter the full path to the new shell. Make sure that its )&%) listed in the (5) le rst. The root user can also change any users shell by running chsh with a username as the argument.
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Chapter 12 Essential System Administration The nger information is the optional information such as your full name, phone numbers, and room number. This can be changed using chfn, and follows the same procedure as it did during account creation. As usual, root can change anyones nger information.
12.2 Users and Groups, the Hard Way

Of course, it is possible to add, modify, and remove users and groups without using the scripts and programs that come with Slackware. Its not really difcult, although after reading this process, youll probably nd it much easier to use the scripts. However, its important to know how your password information is actually stored, in case you ever need to recover this information and dont have the Slackware tools available. First, well add a new user to the (5), (5), and (5) (*. les. The le holds some information about the users on your system, but (strangely enough) not their passwords. This was once the case, but was halted long ago for security reasons. The passwd le must be readable by all users, but you dont want encrypted passwords world-readable, as would-be intruders can use the encrypted passwords as a starting point for decrypting a users password. Instead, the encrypted passwords are kept in the shadow le, which is only readable by root, ( *). 9
( le simply as x. The le and everyones password is entered into the lists all the groups and who is in each. le safely, and the vigr comYou can use the vipw command to edit the 9
)( % *
&. mand to edit the le safely. Use vipw -s to edit the le safely. (Safely in this context means someone else wont be able to modify the le youre editing at the moment. If youre the only administrator of your system, youre probably safe, but its best to get into good habits from the start.) Lets examine the (*. in looks like this:
(*. )( *). ( *. % *
&. )9
(
le and look at how to add a new user. A typical entry
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chris:x:1000:100:Chris Lumens,Room 2:/home/chris:/bin/bash
Each line is an entry for one user, and elds on each line are separated by a colon. The elds are the login name, encrypted password (x for everyone on a Slackware system, since Slackware uses shadow passwords), user ID, group ID, the optional nger information (separated by commas), home directory, and shell. To add a new user by hand, add a new line at the end of the le, lling in the appropriate information. The information you add needs to meet some requirements, or your new user may have problems logging in. First, make sure that the password eld is an x, and that both the user name and user ID is unique. Assign the user a group, either 100 (the users group in Slackware) or your default group (use its number, not its name). Give the user a valid home directory (which youll create later) and shell (remember, % ) ). valid shells are listed in Next, well need to add an entry in the /etc/shadow le, which holds the encrypted passwords. A typical entry looks like this:
chris:$1$w9bsw/N9$uwLr2bRER6YyBS.CAEp7R.:11055:0:99999:7:::
Again, each line is an entry for one person, with each eld delimited by a colon. The elds are (in order) login name, encrypted password, days since the Epoch (January 1, 1970) that the password was last changed, days before the password may be changed, days after which the password must be changed, days before password expiration that the user is notied, days after expiration that the account is disabled, days since the Epoch that the account is disabled, and a reserved eld. As you can see, most of that is for account expiration information. If you arent using expiration information, you only need to ll in a few elds with some special values. Otherwise, youll need to do some calculations and decision making before you can ll those elds in. For a new user, just put some random garbage in the password eld. Dont worry about what the password is right now, because youre going to change it in a minute. The only character you cannot include in the password eld is a colon. Leave the days since password was changed eld blank as well. Fill in 0,
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99999,
and 7 just as you see in the example entry, and leave the other elds blank.
(For those of you who think you see my encrypted password above and believe youve got a leg up on breaking into my system, go right ahead. If you can crack that password, youll know the password to a rewalled test system. Now thats useful :) ) All normal users are members of the users group on a typical Slackware system. However, if you want to create a new group, or add the new user to additional groups, 9
)( le. Here is a typical entry: youll need to modify the
cvs::102:chris,logan,david,root
The elds are group name, group password, group ID, and group members, separated by commas. Creating a new group is a simple matter of adding a new line with a unique group ID, and listing all the users you want to be in the group. Any users that are in this new group and are logged in will have to log out and log back in for those changes to take effect. At this point, it might be a good idea to use the pwck and grpck commands to verify that the changes youve made are consistent. First, use pwck -r and grpck -r: the -r switch makes no changes, but lists the changes you would be asked to make if you ran the command without the switch. You can use this output to decide whether you need to further modify any les, to run pwck or grpck without the -r switch, or to simply leave your changes as they are. At this point, you should use the passwd command to create a proper password for the user. Then, use mkdir to create the new users home directory in the location )( *). you entered into the le, and use chown to change the owner of the new directory to the new user. Removing a user is a simple matter of deleting all of the entries that exist for that ( *. &%*
&. user. Remove the users entry from and , and remove the login 9
)( name from any groups in the le. If you wish, delete the users home directory, the mail spool le, and his crontab entry (if they exist). Removing groups is similar: remove the groups entry from
9
)(
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12.3 Shutting Down Properly

It is very important that you shut down your system properly. Simply turning the power off with the power switch can cause serious lesystem damage. While the system is on, les are in use even if you arent doing anything. Remember that there are many processes running in the background all the time. These processes are managing the system and keep a lot of les open. When the systems power is switched off, these les are not closed properly and may become corrupted. Depending on what les become damaged, the system might be rendered completely unusable! In any case, youll have to go through a long lesystem check procedure on the next reboot.
Note: If you congured your system with a journalling lesystem, like ext3 or reiserfs, youll be partially protected from lesystem damage, and your lesystem check on reboot will be shorter than if you had used a lesystem without journalling, like ext2. However, this safety net is no excuse for improperly shutting down your system! A journalling FS is meant to protect your les from events beyond your control, not from your own laziness.
In any case, when you want to reboot or power down your computer, it is important to do so properly. There are several ways of doing so; you can pick whichever one you think is the most fun (or least amount of work). Since a shutdown and a reboot are similar procedures, most of the ways for powering off the system can also be applied to rebooting. The rst method is through the shutdown(8) program, and it is probably the most popular. shutdown can be used to reboot or turn off the system at a given time, and can display a message to all the logged-in users of the system telling them that the system is going down. The most basic use of shutdown to power down the computer is:
#
shutdown -h now
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Chapter 12 Essential System Administration In this case, we are not going to send a custom message to the users; they will see shutdowns default message. now is the time that we want to shutdown, and the -h means to halt the system. This is not a very friendly way to run a multi-user system, but it works just ne on your home computer. A better method on a multiuser system would be to give everyone a little advance warning:
#
shutdown -h +60
This would shutdown the system in one hour (60 minutes), which would be just ne on a normal multiuser system. Vital systems should have their downtime scheduled far in advance, and you should post warnings about the downtime in any appropriate )
) locations used for system notications (email, bulletin board, , whatever). Rebooting the system uses the same command, but substitutes -r for -h:
#
shutdown -r now
You can use same time notation with shutdown -r that you could with shutdown -h. There are a lot of other things that you can do with shutdown to control when to halt or reboot the machine; see the man page for more details. The second way of shutting down or powering off the computer is to use the halt(8) and reboot(8) commands. As the names indicate, halt will immediately halt the operating system, and reboot will reboot the system. (reboot is actually just a symbolic link to halt.) They are invoked like so:
halt # reboot
#
A lower-level way to reboot or shutdown the system is to talk directly to init. All the other methods are simply convenient ways to talk to init, but you can directly tell it what to do using telinit(8) (note that it only has one l). Using telinit will tell init what runlevel to drop into, which will cause a special script to be run. This script will kill or spawn processes as needed for that runlevel. This works for rebooting and shutting down because both of those are special runlevels.
#
telinit 0
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Chapter 12 Essential System Administration Runlevel 0 is halt mode. Telling init to enter runlevel 0 will cause all processes to be killed off, the lesystems unmounted, and the machine to be halted. This is a perfectly acceptable way to bring down the system. On many laptops and modern desktop computers, this will also cause the machine to be turned off.
#
telinit 6
Runlevel 6 is reboot mode. All processes will be killed off, the lesystems will be unmounted, and the machine will be rebooted. This is a perfectly acceptable method of rebooting the system. For the curious, when switching to runlevel 0 or 6, whether by using shutdown, ox op is run. (The script is another halt, or reboot, the script ox symbolic link, to .) You can customize this le to your tastes--but be sure to test your changes carefully! There is one last method of rebooting the system. All the other methods require you to be logged in as root. However, it is possible to reboot the machine even if you arent root, provided that you have physical access to the keyboard. Using Control+Alt+Delete (the "three-ngered salute") will cause the machine to immediately reboot. (Behind the scenes, the shutdown command is called for you when you use Control+Alt+Delete.) The salute doesnt always work when using X Windows--you may need to use Control+Alt+F1 (or another Function key) to switch to a non-X Windows terminal before using it. Finally, the le that ultimately controls every aspect of startup and shutdown is the ) *+ (5) le. In general, you should not need to modify this le, but it may give you insight into why some things work the way they do. As always, see the man pages for further details.
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Chapter 13
Basic Network Commands

A network consists of several computers connected together. The network can be as simple as a few computers connected in your home or ofce, or as complicated as a large university network or even the entire Internet. When your computer is part of a network, you have access to those systems either directly or through services like mail and the web. There are a variety of networking programs that you can use. Some are handy for performing diagnostics to see if everything is working properly. Others (like mail readers and web browsers) are useful for getting your work done and staying in contact with other people.
13.1 ping
ping(8)
sends an ICMP ECHO_REQUEST packet to the specied host. If the host responds, you get an ICMP packet back. Sound strange? Well, you can ping an IP address to see if a machine is alive. If there is no response, you know something is wrong. Here is an example conversation between two Linux users:
User A: Lokis down again. User B: Are you sure? User A: Yeah, I tried pinging it, but theres no response.
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Chapter 13 Basic Network Commands
Its instances like these that make ping a very useful day-to-day command. It provides a very quick way to see if a machine is up and connected to the network. The basic syntax is:
%
ping www.slackware.com ping(1)
There are, of course, several options that can be specied. Check the page for more information.
man
13.2 traceroute
command is a very useful network diagnostic tool. traceroute displays each host that a packet travels through as it tries to reach its destination. You can see how many hops from the Slackware web site you are with this command:
%
Slackwares
traceroute(8)
traceroute www.slackware.com
Each host will be displayed, along with the response times at each host. Here is an example output:
%
traceroute www.slackware.com traceroute to www.slackware.com (204.216.27.13), 30 hops max, 40 byte packets 1 zuul.tdn (192.168.1.1) 0.409 ms 1.032 ms 0.303 ms 2 207.171.227.254 (207.171.227.254) 18.218 ms 32.873 ms 32.433 ms 3 border-sf-2-0-4.sirius.com (205.134.230.254) 15.662 ms 15.731 ms 16.142 ms 4 pb-nap.crl.net (198.32.128.20) 20.741 ms 23.672 ms 21.378 ms 5 E0-CRL-SFO-03-E0X0.US.CRL.NET (165.113.55.3) 22.293 ms 21.532 ms 21.29 ms 6 T1-CDROM-00-EX.US.CRL.NET (165.113.118.2) 24.544 ms 42.955 ms 58.443 ms 7 www.slackware.com (204.216.27.13) 38.115 ms 53.033 ms 48.328 ms
traceroute is similar to ping in that it uses ICMP packets. There are several options
that you can specify with man page.
traceroute.
These options are explained in detail in the
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13.3 DNS Tools

Domain Name Service (DNS for short) is that magical protocol that allows your computer to turn meaningless domain names like www.slackware.com xy7o p)nGsy into meaningful IP address like . Computers cant route packets to www.slackware.com, but they can route packets to that domain names IP address. This gives us a convenient way to remember machines. Without DNS wed have to keep a mental database of just what IP address belongs to what computer, and thats assuming the IP address doesnt change. Clearly using names for computers is better, but how do we map names to IP addresses?
host
host(1)
can do this for us. host is used to map names to IP addresses. It is a very quick and simple utility without a lot of functions.
host www.slackware.com www.slackware.com is an alias for slackware.com. slackware.com has address 64.57.102.34
%
But lets say for some reason we want to map an IP address to a domain name; what then?
nslookup
nslookup is a tried and true program that has weathered the ages. nslookup has been
deprecated and may be removed from future releases. There is not even a man page for this program.
nslookup 64.57.102.34 Note: nslookup is deprecated and may be removed from future releases. Consider using the dig or host programs instead. Run nslookup with the -sil[ent] option to prevent this message from appearing. Server: 192.168.1.254 Address: 192.168.1.254#53
%
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Non-authoritative answer: www.slackware.com canonical name = slackware.com. Name: slackware.com Address: 64.57.102.34
dig
The meanest dog in the pound, the domain information groper, dig(1) for short, is the go-to program for nding DNS information. dig can grab just about anything from a DNS server including reverse lookups, A, CNAME, MX, SP, and TXT records. dig has many command line options and if youre not familiar with it you should read through its extensive man page.
%
dig @192.168.1.254 www.slackware.com mx
; <<>> DiG 9.2.2 <<>> @192.168.1.254 www.slackware.com mx ;; global options: printcmd ;; Got answer: ;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 26362 ;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 2, AUTHORITY: 2, ADDITIONAL: 2 ;; QUESTION SECTION: ;www.slackware.com. ;; ANSWER SECTION: www.slackware.com. slackware.com. ;; AUTHORITY SECTION: slackware.com. slackware.com. ;; ADDITIONAL SECTION: ns1.cwo.com. ns2.cwo.com. ;; ;; ;; ;;
IN
MX
76634 86400
IN IN
CNAME MX
slackware.com. 1 mail.slackware.com.
86400 86400
IN IN
NS NS
ns1.cwo.com. ns2.cwo.com.
163033 163033
IN IN
A A
64.57.100.2 64.57.100.3
Query time: 149 msec SERVER: 192.168.1.254#53(192.168.1.254) WHEN: Sat Nov 6 16:59:31 2004 MSG SIZE rcvd: 159
160
Chapter 13 Basic Network Commands This should give you an idea how dig works. @192.168.1.254 species the dns server to use. www.slackware.com is the domain name I am performing a lookup on, and mx is the type of lookup I am performing. The above query tells me that ..).$!* . *S
*S!)*. *G!
e-mail to - will instead be sent to - for delivery.
13.4 nger
will retrieve information about the specied user. You give nger a username or an email address and it will try to contact the necessary server and retrieve the username, ofce, telephone number, and other pieces of information. Here is an example:
%
finger(1)
finger johnc@idsoftware.com
finger
can return the username, mail status, phone numbers, and les referred to as dot plan and dot project. Of course, the information returned varies with each finger server. The one included with Slackware returns the following information by default:

Username Room number Home phone number Work phone number Login status Email status Contents of the Contents of the
v( *
le in the users home directory le in the users home directory
v()
)
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Chapter 13 Basic Network Commands The rst four items can be set with the chfn command. It stores those values in the )( *). v( * v()
) le. To change the information in your or le, just edit them with your favorite text editor. They must reside in your home directory and v( * v()
) and . must be called Many users finger their own account from a remote machine to quickly see if they have new email. Or, you can see a users plan or current project. Like many commands, finger has options. Check the man page for more information on what special options you can use.
13.5 telnet
Someone once stated that telnet(1) was the coolest thing he had ever seen on computers. The ability to remotely log in and do stuff on another computer is what separates Unix and Unix-like operating systems from other operating systems.
telnet
allows you to log in to a computer, just as if you were sitting at the terminal. Once your username and password are veried, you are given a shell prompt. From here, you can do anything requiring a text console. Compose email, read newsgroups, move les around, and so on. If you are running X and you telnet to another machine, you can run X programs on the remote computer and display them on yours. To login to a remote machine, use this syntax:
%
telnet <hostname>
If the host responds, you will receive a login prompt. Give it your username and password. Thats it. You are now at a shell. To quit your telnet session, use either the exit command or the logout command.
Warning: telnet does not encrypt the information it sends. Everything is sent in plain text, even passwords. It is not advisable to use telnet over the Inter-
162
net. Instead, consider the Secure Shell. It encrypts all trafc and is available for free.
The other use of telnet

Now that we have convinced you not to use the telnet protocol anymore to log into a remote machine, well show you a couple of useful ways to use telnet. You can also use the telnet command to connect to a host on a certain port.
%
telnet <hostname> [port]
This can be quite handy when you quickly need to test a certain service, and you need full control over the commands, and you need to see what exactly is going on. You can interactively test or use an SMTP server, a POP3 server, an HTTP server, etc. this way. In the next gure youll see how you can telnet to a HTTP server on port 80, and get some basic information from it. Figure 13-1. Telnetting to a webserver
telnet store.slackware.com 80 Trying 69.50.233.153... Connected to store.slackware.com. Escape character is ^]. HEAD / HTTP/1.0
%
HTTP/1.1 200 OK Date: Mon, 25 Apr 2005 20:47:01 GMT Server: Apache/1.3.33 (Unix) mod_ssl/2.8.22 OpenSSL/0.9.7d Last-Modified: Fri, 18 Apr 2003 10:58:54 GMT ETag: "193424-c0-3e9fda6e" Accept-Ranges: bytes Content-Length: 192 Connection: close
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Content-Type: text/html Connection closed by foreign host.

%
You can do the same for other plain-text protocols, as long as you know what port to connect to, and what the commands are.
13.6 The Secure shell

Today, secure shell basks in the adoration that telnet once enjoyed. ssh(1) allows one to make a connection to a remote machine and execute programs as if one were physically present; however, ssh encrypts all the data travelling between the two computers so even if others intercept the conversation, they are unable to understand it. A typical secure shell connection follows.
ssh carrier.lizella.net -l alan The authenticity of host carrier.lizella.net (192.168.1.253) cant be established. RSA key fingerprint is 0b:e2:5d:43:4c:39:4f:8c:b9:85:db:b2:fa:25:e9:9d. Are you sure you want to continue connecting (yes/no)? yes Warning: Permanently added carrier.lizella.net (RSA) to the list of known hosts. Password: password Last login: Sat Nov 6 16:32:19 2004 from 192.168.1.102 Linux 2.4.26-smp. alan@carrier:~$ ls -l MANIFEST -rw-r--r-- 1 alan users 23545276 2004-10-28 20:04 MANIFEST alan@carrier:~$ exit logout Connection to carrier.lizella.net closed.
%
There you see me making an ssh connection to q t the permissions on the , C B h A le.
*)7u&{)*Gv
, and checking
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13.7 email
Electronic mail is one of the most popular things one can do on the Internet. In 1998, it was reported that more electronic mail was sent than regular mail. It is indeed common and useful. Under Slackware, we provide a standard mail server, and several mail clients. All of the clients discussed below are text-based. A lot of Windows users may be against this, but you will nd that a text based client is very convenient, especially when checking mail remotely. Fear not, there are many graphical e-mail clients such as KDEs Kmail. If you wish to use one of those check its help menu.
pine
pine(1) is not elm. Or so the saying goes. The University of Washington created their
program for Internet news and email out of a need for an easy mail reader for their students. pine is one of the most popular email clients in use today and is available for nearly every avor of Unix and even Windows.
165
Chapter 13 Basic Network Commands Figure 13-2. The Pine main menu
You will see a menu of commands and a row of command keys at the bottom. pine is indeed a complex program, so we will not discuss every feature about it here. To see whats in your inbox, type i. Your messages are listed with their date, author, and subject. Highlight the message you want and press enter to view it. Pressing r will start a reply to the message. Once you have written the response, type Ctrl+X to send it. You can press i to get back to the message listing. If you want to delete a message, press d. It will mark the highlighted message for deletion. pine deletes the mail when you exit the program. pine also lets you store your mail in folders. You can get a listing of folders by pressing l. At the message listing, press s to save it to another folder. It will ask for the folder name to write the message to.
pine
offers many, many features; you should denitely have a look at the man page
166
Chapter 13 Basic Network Commands for more information. It will contain the latest information about the program.
elm
elm(1)
is another popular text-based email client. Though not quite as user friendly as pine, its denitely been around a lot longer.
Figure 13-3. Elm main screen
By default, you are placed in your inbox. The messages are listed with the message number, date, sender, and subject. Use the arrow keys to highlight the message you want. Press Enter to read the message. To compose a new message, type m at the main screen. The d key will ag a message for deletion. And the r key will reply to the current message you are reading. All of
167
Chapter 13 Basic Network Commands these keys are displayed at the bottom of the screen with a prompt. The man page discusses that before using elm.
elm
in more detail, so you will probably want to consult
mutt
All mail clients suck. This one just sucks less. mutts original interface was based on elm with added features found in other popular mailclients, resulting in a hybrid mutt. Some of mutts features include:

color support message threading MIME and PGP/MIME support pop3 and imap support support for multiple mailbox formats (mbox, MMDF, MH, maildir) highly customizable
168
Chapter 13 Basic Network Commands Figure 13-4. Mutt main screen
if youre looking for a mail client that will let you be in total control over everything, then you will like mutt. all the default settings can be customized, keybindings can be changed. if you like to add a macro, you can. you probably want to take a look at the manpage, which will tell you how to ) congure everything. or take a look at the included example le.
)
nail
is a command line driven mail client. It is very primitive and offers pretty much nothing in the way of user interfaces. However, mailx is handy for times when you need to quickly mail something, scripting a bulk mailer, testing your MTA installation or something similar. Note that Slackware creates symbolic links to nail '&+ * + *= at and . Any of these three commands executes the same
nail(1)
169
Chapter 13 Basic Network Commands program. In fact, you will most likely see nail referred to as mail. The basic command line is:
%
mailx <subject> <to-addr>
reads the message body from standard input. So you can cat a le into this command to mail it, or you can just type text and hit Ctrl+D when nished with the message.
mailx
Here is an example of mailing a program source le to another person.

%
cat randomfunc.c | mail -s "Heres that function" asdf@example.net
The man page explains more of what nail can do, so you will probably want to have a look at that before using it.
13.8 Browsers
The rst thing that people think about when they hear the word Internet is surng the net. Or looking at websites using a web browser. This is probably by far the most popular use of the Internet for the average user. Slackware provides popular graphical web browsers in the XAP series, as well as text mode browsers in the N series. Well take a quick look at some of the most common options below.
lynx
lynx(1)
is a text-based web browser. It is a very quick way of looking up something on the Internet. Sometimes graphics just get in the way if you know exactly what youre after. To start lynx, just type lynx at the prompt:
170
lynx
Figure 13-5. Lynx default start page
You may want to specify a site for lynx to open to:

%
lynx http://www.slackware.com
prints the command keys and what they do at the bottom of the screen. The up and down arrow keys move around the document, Enter selects the highlighted link, and the left arrow goes back to the previous page. Typing d will download the currently selected le. The g command brings up the Go prompt, where you can give lynx a URL to open.
lynx
There are many other commands in lynx. You can either consult the man page, or type h to get the help screen for more information.
171
links
Just like lynx, links is a textmode web browser, where you do all the navigation using the keyboard. However, when you press the Esc key, it will activate a very convenient pulldown menu on the top of the screen. This makes it very easy to use, without having to learn all the keyboard shortcuts. People who do not use a text browser every day will appreciate this feature.
links lynx.
seems to have better support for both frames and tables, when compared to
Figure 13-6. Links, with the le menu open
172
wget
is a command line utility that will download les from a specied URL. While not an actual web-browser, wget is used primarily to grab whole or partial web sites for ofine viewing, or for fast download of single les from HTTP or FTP servers instead. The basic syntax is:
%
wget(1)
wget <url>
You can also pass options. For example, this will download the Slackware web site:
%
wget --recursive http://www.slackware.com

..).$!* . *S
-
will create a site does.

wget
directory and store the les in there, just as the
wget can also download les from FTP sites; just specify an FTP URL instead of an
HTTP one.
% wget ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/wget/wget-1.8.2.tar.gz --12:18:16-- ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/wget/wget-1.8.2.tar.gz => wget-1.8.2.tar.gz Resolving ftp.gnu.org... done. Connecting to ftp.gnu.org[199.232.41.7]:21... connected. Logging in as anonymous ... Logged in! ==> SYST ... done. ==> PWD ... done. ==> TYPE I ... done. ==> CWD /gnu/wget ... done. ==> PORT ... done. ==> RETR wget-1.8.2.tar.gz ... done. Length: 1,154,648 (unauthoritative)
100%[==================================>] 1,154,648
209.55K/s
ETA 00:00
12:18:23 (209.55KB/s) - wget-1.8.2.tar.gz saved [1154648]
has many more options, which make it nice for site specic scripts (web site mirroring and so forth). The man page should be consulted for more information.
wget
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13.9 FTP Clients

FTP stands for the File Transfer Protocol. It allows you to send and receive les between two computers. There is the FTP server and the FTP client. We discuss the client in this section. For the curious, the client is you. The server is the computer that answers your FTP request and lets you login. You will download les from and upload les to the server. The client cannot accept FTP connections, it can only connect to servers.
ftp
To connect to an FTP server, simply run the ftp(1) command and specify the host:
%
ftp <hostname> [port]
If the host is running an FTP server, it will ask for a username and password. You can log in as yourself or as anonymous. Anonymous FTP sites are very popular for software archives. For example, to get Slackware Linux via FTP, you must use anonymous FTP. Once connected, you will be at the ftp> prompt. There are special commands for FTP, but they are similar to other standard commands. The following shows some of the basic commands and what they do: Table 13-1. ftp commands Command
ls cd <dirname> bin ascii get <filename> put <filename>
Purpose List les Change directory Set binary transfer mode Set ASCII transfer mode Download a le Upload a le
174
Command
hash tick prom mget <mask> mput <mask> quit
Purpose Toggle hash mark stats indicator Toggle byte counter indicator Toggle interactive mode for downloads Download a le or group of les; wildcards are allowed Upload a le or group of les; wildcards are allowed Log off the FTP server
You can also use some of the following commands which are quite self-explanatory: chmod, delete, rename, rmdir. For a complete list of all commands and their meaning, just type help or ? and youll see a complete listing on screen. FTP is a fairly simple program to use, but lacks the user interface that many of us are used to nowadays. The man page discusses some of the command line options for ftp(1).
ftp> ls *.TXT 200 PORT command successful. 150 Opening ASCII mode data connection for /bin/ls. -rw-r--r-1 root 100 18606 Apr 6 2002 BOOTING.TXT -rw-r--r-1 root 100 10518 Jun 13 2002 COPYRIGHT.TXT -rw-r--r-1 root 100 602 Apr 6 2002 CRYPTO_NOTICE.TXT -rw-r--r-1 root 100 32431 Sep 29 02:56 FAQ.TXT -rw-r--r-1 root 100 499784 Mar 3 19:29 FILELIST.TXT -rw-r--r-1 root 100 241099 Mar 3 19:12 PACKAGES.TXT -rw-r--r-1 root 100 12339 Jun 19 2002 README81.TXT -rw-r--r-1 root 100 14826 Jun 17 2002 SPEAKUP_DOCS.TXT -rw-r--r-1 root 100 15434 Jun 17 2002 SPEAK_INSTALL.TXT -rw-r--r-1 root 100 2876 Jun 17 2002 UPGRADE.TXT 226 Transfer complete. ftp> tick Tick counter printing on (10240 bytes/tick increment). ftp> get README81.TXT local: README81.TXT remote: README81.TXT 200 PORT command successful. 150 Opening BINARY mode data connection for README81.TXT (12339 bytes). Bytes transferred: 12339 226 Transfer complete. 12339 bytes received in 0.208 secs (58 Kbytes/sec)
175
ncftp
ncftp(1)
(pronounced "Nik-F-T-P") is an alternative to the traditional ftp client that comes with Slackware. It is still a text-based program, but offers many advantages over ftp, including:

Tab completion Bookmarks le More liberal wildcard uses Command history
By default, ncftp will try to log in anonymously to the server you specify. You can force ncftp to present a login prompt with the -u option. Once logged in, you can use the same commands as in ftp, only youll notice a nicer interface, one that works more like bash.
ncftp /pub/linux/slackware > cd slackware-current/ Please read the file README81.TXT it was last modified on Wed Jun 19 16:24:21 2002 - 258 days ago CWD command successful. ncftp ...ware/slackware-current > ls BOOTING.TXT FAQ.TXT bootdisks/ CHECKSUMS FILELIST.TXT extra/ CHECKSUMS.asc GPG-KEY isolinux/ CHECKSUMS.md5 PACKAGES.TXT kernels/ CHECKSUMS.md5.asc PRERELEASE_NOTES pasture/ COPYING README81.TXT rootdisks/ COPYRIGHT.TXT SPEEKUP_DOCS.TXT slackware/ CRYPTO_NOTICE.TXT SPEEK_INSTALL.TXT source/ CURRENT.WARNING Slackware-HOWTO ChangeLog.txt UPGRADE.TXT ncftp ...ware/slackware-current > get README81.TXT README81.TXT: 12.29 kB 307.07 kB/s
176
13.10 Talking to Other People

wall
wall(1) is a quick way to write a message to the users on a system. The basic syntax
is:
%
wall [file]
This will result in the contents of [le] being displayed on the terminals of all currently logged in users. If you dont specify a le, wall will read from standard input, so you can just type your message, and end with Ctrl+d.
wall doesnt have many features, and apart from letting your users know that youre
about to do some serious maintenance to the system, or even reboot it, so they have time to save their work and log off :)
talk
allows two users to chat. It splits the screen in half, horizontally. To request a chat with another user, use this command:
%
talk(1)
talk <person> [ttyname]
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Chapter 13 Basic Network Commands Figure 13-7. Two users in a talk session
If you specify just a username, the chat request is assumed to be local, so only local users are queried. The ttyname is required if you want to ring a user on a specic terminal (if the user is logged in more than once). The required information for talk can be obtained from the w(1) command.
talk
can also ring users on remote hosts. For the username you simply specify an email address. talk will try to contact that remote user on that host.
talk
is somewhat limited. It only supports two users and is half-duplex.
ytalk
is a backwards compatible replacement for talk. It comes with Slackware as the ytalk command. The syntax is similar, but has a few differences:
ytalk(1)
178
ytalk <username>[#ttyname]
Figure 13-8. Two users in a ytalk session
The username and terminal are specied the same as under talk, except you must put them together with the hash mark (#). ytalk offers several advantages:

It supports more than two users. A menu of options that can be brought up anytime with Esc. You can shell out while still in the talk session. Plus more...
179
Chapter 13 Basic Network Commands If youre a server administrator, youll want to make sure that the ))7!
)" enabled in . ytalk needs that to work properly. port is
ntalk
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Chapter 14
Security
Security on any system is important; it can prevent people launching attacks from your machine, as well as protect sensitive data. This chapter is all about how to start securing your Slackware box against script kiddies, crackers and rogue hamsters alike. Bear in mind that this is only the start of securing a system; security is a process, not a state.
14.1 Disabling Services

The rst step after installing Slackware should be to disable any services you dont need. Any services could potentially pose a security risk, so it is important to run as few services as possible (i.e. only those that are needed). Services are started from two main places - inetd and init scripts.
Services started from inetd

A lot of the daemons that come with Slackware are run from inetd(8). inetd is a daemon that listens on all of the ports used by services congured to be started by it and spawns an instance of the relevant daemon when a connection attempt is made. Daemons started from inetd can be disabled by commenting out the relevant lines ) )7!
)" . To do this, open this le in your favorite editor (e.g. vi) and you in should see lines similar to this:
telnet stream tcp nowait root /usr/sbin/tcpd in.telnetd
181
Chapter 14 Security You can disable this service, and any others you dont need, by commenting them out (i.e. adding a # (hash) symbol to the beginning of the line). The above line would then become:
#telnet stream tcp nowait root /usr/sbin/tcpd in.telnetd inetd
After inetd has been restarted, this service will be disabled. You can restart with the command:
#
kill -HUP $(cat /var/run/inetd.pid)
Services started from init scripts

The rest of the services started when the machine starts are started from the init ) . These can be disabled in two different ways, the rst being to scripts in remove the execute permissions on the relevant init script and the second being to comment out the relevant lines in the init scripts. For example, SSH is started by its own init script at able this using:
#
l)%
. You can dis-
chmod -x /etc/rc.d/rc.sshd
For services that dont have their own init script, you will need to comment out the relevant lines in the init scripts to disable them. For example, the portmap daemon ) n is started by the following lines in :
# This must be running in order to mount NFS volumes. # Start the RPC portmapper: if [ -x /sbin/rpc.portmap ]; then echo "Starting RPC portmapper: /sbin/rpc.portmap" /sbin/rpc.portmap fi # Done starting the RPC portmapper.
182
Chapter 14 Security This can be disabled by adding already start with them, like so: symbols to the beginnings of the lines that dont
# This must be running in order to mount NFS volumes. # Start the RPC portmapper: #if [ -x /sbin/rpc.portmap ]; then # echo "Starting RPC portmapper: /sbin/rpc.portmap" # /sbin/rpc.portmap #fi # Done starting the RPC portmapper.
These changes will only take effect after either a reboot or changing from and back to runlevel 3 or 4. You can do this by typing the following on the console (you will need to log in again after changing to runlevel 1):
telinit 1 # telinit 3
#
14.2 Host Access Control

iptables
iptables is the packet ltering conguration program for Linux 2.4 and above. The
2.4 kernel (2.4.5, to be exact) was rst introduced into Slackware (as an option) in version 8.0 and was made the default in Slackware 8.1. This section only covers the g basics of its usage and you should check EGFGFGHKJ/I/MLSLGLONd_bRMF ^VTMFbR3N53VcU/ for more )"'. *) details. These commands can be entered into , which has to be set as executable for these rules to take effect at startup. Note that incorrect iptables commands can essentially lock you out of your own machine. Unless you are 100% condent in your skills, always ensure you have local access to the machine. The rst thing most people should do is set the default policy for each inbound chain to DROP:
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Chapter 14 Security
# #
iptables -P INPUT DROP iptables -P FORWARD DROP
When everything is denied, you can start allowing things. The rst thing to allow is any trafc for sessions which are already established:
#
iptables -A INPUT -m state --state ESTABLISHED,RELATED -j ACCEPT
So as not to break any applications that communicate using the loopback address, it is usually wise to add a rule like this:
#
iptables -A INPUT -s 127.0.0.0/8 -d 127.0.0.0/8 -i lo -j ACCEPT
This rules allows any trafc to and from 127.0.0.0/8 (127.0.0.0 - 127.255.255.255)
on the loopback ( ) interface. When creating rules, it is a good idea to be as specic as possible, to make sure that your rules do not inadvertently allow anything evil. That said, rules that allow too little mean more rules and more typing. The next thing to do would be to allow access to specic services running on your machine. If, for example, you wanted to run a web server on your machine, you would use a rule similar to this:
#
iptables -A INPUT -p tcp --dport 80 -i ppp0 -j ACCEPT

()((p
inThis will allow access from any machine to port 80 on your machine via the terface. You may want to restrict access to this service so that only certain machines xyIu pnSosy can access it. This rule allows access to your web service from :
#
iptables -A INPUT -p tcp -s 64.57.102.34 --dport 80 -i ppp0 -j ACCEPT
Allowing ICMP trafc can be useful for diagnostic purposes. To do this, you would use a rule like this:
#
iptables -A INPUT -p icmp -j ACCEPT
Most people will also want to set up Network Address Translation (NAT) on their gateway machine, so that other machines on their network can access the Internet
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Chapter 14 Security through it. You would use the following rule to do this:
#
iptables -t nat -A POSTROUTING -o ppp0 -j MASQUERADE
You will also need to enable IP forwarding. You can do this temporarily, using the following command:
#
echo 1 > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/ip_forward
To enable IP forwarding on a more permanent basis (i.e. so that the change is kept ) n after a reboot), you will need to open the le in your favorite editor and change the following line:
IPV4_FORWARD=0
...to this:
IPV4_FORWARD=1
For more information on NAT, see the NAT HOWTO2.
tcpwrappers
controls access to daemons at the application level, rather than at the IP level. This can provide an extra layer of security at times when IP-level access controls (e.g. Netlter) are not functioning correctly. For example, if you recompile the kernel but forget to include iptables support, your IP level protection will fail but tcpwrappers will still help protect your system.
tcpwrappers
Access to services protected by tcpwrappers can be controlled using %

'V)w and . The majority of people would have a single line in their access to all daemons by default. This line would be:
2 http://www.netlter.org/documentation/HOWTO/NAT-HOWTO.txt
%
u*)
&.
)%
&'Vw
le to deny
185
Chapter 14 Security
ALL : ALL
When this is done, you can concentrate on allowing access to services for specied %
&'u*)
. hosts, domains, or IP ranges. This can be done in the le, which follows the same format. A lot of people would start by accepting all connections from achieved using:
ALL : 127.0.0.1

*)%

. This can be
To allow access to SSHd from rules:

sshd : 192.168.0.0/24 sshd : 192.168.0.
)nSmxIpIpny
, you could use either of the following
It is also possible to restrict access to hosts in certain domains. This can be done using the following rule (note that this relies on the reverse DNS entry for the connecting host being trustworthy, so I would recommand against its use on Internetconnected hosts):
sshd : .slackware.com
14.3 Keeping Current

slackware-security
mailing list
Whenever a security problem affects Slackware, an email is sent to all subscribers to the slackware-security@slackware.com mailing list. Reports are sent out for )=)* ( *&) vulnerabilities of any part of Slackware, apart from the software in or . These security announcement emails include details on obtaining updated versions of Slackware packages or work-arounds, if any.
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Chapter 14 Security Subscribing to Slackware mailing lists is covered in Section 2.2.2.
The
/ HQW F26;EbRI1
directory
Whenever updated packages are released for a version of Slackware (usually only to x a security problem, in the case of already released Slackware versions), they (*% are placed in the directory. The full path to these patches will depend on the (*)%
))*.'* =$v= (*% : mirror you are using, but will take the form . Before installing these packages, it is a good idea to verify the md5sum of the package. md5sum(1) is a commandline utility that creates a unique mathematical hash of the le. If a single bit of the le has been changed, it will generate a different md5sum value.
%
md5sum package-<ver>-<arch>-<rev>.tgz 6341417aa1c025448b53073a1f1d287d package-<ver>-<arch>-<rev>.tgz

zt tG
You should then check this against the line for the new package in the > h) , * .'* 8 h jt q (*% le in the root of the directory for : ? directory (also in the patches) or in the email to the slackware-security mailing list. If you have a le with the md5sum values in it, you can source it instead with the -c option to md5sum.
# md5sum -c CHECKSUMS.md5 ./ANNOUNCE.10_0: OK ./BOOTING.TXT: OK ./COPYING: OK ./COPYRIGHT.TXT: OK ./CRYPTO_NOTICE.TXT: OK ./ChangeLog.txt: OK ./FAQ.TXT: FAILED
As you can see, any les that md5sum evaluates as correct are listed OK while les that fail are labelled FAILED. (Yes, this was an insult to your intelligence. Why do you put up with me?)
187
Chapter 14 Security
188
Chapter 15
Archive Files
15.1 gzip
gzip(1)
is the GNU compression program. It takes a single le and compresses it. The basic usage is as follows:
gzip filename
"' * S9{
and will usually be smaller than the The resulting le will be named "'* S9{ ") * ")* input le. Note that will replace - . This means that - will no longer exist, even though a gzipped copy will. Regular text les will compress nicely, while jpeg images, mp3s, and other such les will not compress too well as they are already compressed. This basic usage is a balance of nal le size and compression time. The maximum compression can be achieved like so:
%
gzip -9 filename
This will take a longer time to compress the le, but the result will be as small as gzip can make it. Using lower values for the command line option will cause it to compress faster, but the le will not be as compressed. Decompressing gzipped les can be done using two commands, which are really just the same program. gzip will decompress any le with a recognized le extension. A 9{ 9){ { { o recognized extension can be any of the following: , : , , : , , or : . The rst method is to call gunzip(1) on a le, like so:
%
gunzip filename.gz
189
Chapter 15 Archive Files This will leave a decompressed version of inle in the current directory, and the extension will be stripped from the lename. gunzip is really part of gzip and is identical to gzip -d. As such, gzip is often pronounced gunzip, as that name just sounds cooler. :^)
9){
15.2 bzip2
is an alternative compression program installed on Slackware Linux. It uses a different compression algorithm from gzip, which results in some advantages and some disadvantages. The main advantage for bzip2 is the compressed le size. bzip2 will almost always compress better than gzip. In some instances, this can result in dramatically smaller les. This can be a great advantage for people on slower modem connections. Also remember, when downloading software from a v+{n les instead public ftp server, its generally good netiquette to download the 9){ of the les, as this results in less overhead for the generous people hosting the server. The disadvantage to bzip2 is that it is more CPU intensive than gzip. This means that bzipping a le will generally take longer and will use more of the CPU than gzipping the le would. When considering which compression program to use, you must weigh this speed vs. compressed size and determine which is more important. The usage of bzip2 is nearly identical to gzip, so not much time will be spent discussing it. Like gunzip, bunzip2 is identical to bzip2 -d. The primary difference in v+{n practical usage is that bzip2 uses the extension.
bzip2 filename % bunzip2 filename.bz2 % bzip2 -9 filename
%
bzip2(1)
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Chapter 15 Archive Files
15.3 tar
is the GNU tape archiver. It takes several les or directories and creates one large le. This allows you to compress an entire directory tree, which is impossible by just using gzip or bzip2. tar has many command line options, which are explained in its man page. This section will just cover the most common uses of tar. The most common use for tar is to decompress and unarchive a package that youve *$9){ downloaded from a web site or ftp site. Most les will come with a extension. This is commonly known as a tarball. It means that several les were archived v*7o using tar and then compressed using gzip. You might also see this listed as a le. It means the same thing, but this is usually encountered on older Unix systems. le somewhere. Kernel source is distributed Alternatively, you might nd a as such because it is a smaller download. As you might have guessed, this is several les archived with tar and then bzipped. You can get to all the les in this archive by making use of tar and some command line arguments. Unarchiving a tarball makes use of the -z ag, which means to rst run the le through gunzip and decompress it. The most common way to decompress a tarball is like so:
%
tar(1)
*7+){n
tar -xvzf filename.tar.gz
Thats quite a few options. So what do they all mean? The -x means to extract. This is important, as it tells tar exactly what to do with the input le. In this case, well be splitting it back up into all the les that it came from. -v means to be verbose. This will list all the les that are being unarchived. It is perfectly acceptable to leave this option off, if somewhat boring. Alternatively, you could use -vv to be very verbose and list even more information about each le being unarchived. The -z option tells "'* S*79{ tar to run through gunzip rst. And nally, the -f option tells tar that the next string on the command line is the le to operate on. There are a few other ways to write this same command. On older systems lacking a decent copy of GNU tar, you might see it written like so:
191
gunzip filename.tar.gz | tar -xvf -
This command line will uncompress the le and send the output to tar. Since gzip will write its output to standard out if told to do so, this command will write the decompressed le to standard out. The pipe then sends it to tar for unarchiving. The - means to operate on standard input. It will unarchive the stream of data that it gets from gzip and write that to the disk. Another way to write the rst command line is to leave off the dash before the options, like so:
%
tar xvzf filename.tar.gz
You might also encounter a bzipped archive. The version of tar that comes with Slackware Linux can handle these the same as gzipped archives. Instead of the -z command line option, youd use -j:
%
tar -xvjf filename.tar.bz2
It is important to note that tar will place the unarchived les in the current directory. ( So, if you had an archive in - that you wanted to decompress into your home directory, there are a few options. First, the archive could be moved into your home directory and then run through tar. Second, you could specify the path to the archive le on the command line. Third, you can use the -C option to explode the tarball in a specied directory.
cd $HOME cp /tmp/filename.tar.gz . % tar -xvzf filename.tar.gz
% %
cd $HOME % tar -xvzf /tmp/filename.tar.gz

%
cd / % tar -xvzf /tmp/filename.tar.gz -C $HOME

%
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Chapter 15 Archive Files All the above statements are equivalent. In each case, the archive is unpacked inside your home directory and the original uncompressed archive is left in place. So what good is being able to uncompress these archives if you cant make them? Well, tar handles that too. In most cases its as easy as removing the -x option and replacing it with the -c option.
%
tar -cvzf filename.tar.gz .
In this command line, the -c option tells tar to create an archive, while the -z option "'* S*79{ is the le runs the resulting archive le through gzip to compress it. that you want to create. Specifying the -f option isnt always necessary, but is typically good practice anyway. Without it, tar writes to standard output, which is usually desired for piping tars output to another program, like so.
%
tar -cv filename.tar . | gpg --encrypt
That command creates an non-compressed tar archive of the current directory, pipes the tarball through gpg which encrypts and compresses the tarball, making it realistically impossible to read by anyone other than the person knowing the secret key.
15.4 zip
Finally, there are two utilities that can be used on zip les. These are very common in the Windows world, so Linux has programs to deal with them. The compression program is called zip(1), and the decompression program is called unzip(1).
%
zip foo *
"
)
S{'(
, which will contain all the les in the current direcThis will create the le {( tory. zip will add the extension automatically, so theres no need to include that in the le name. You can also recurse through the current directory, zipping up any directories that are also laying around:
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zip -r foo *
Decompressing les is easy, as well.

%
unzip foo.zip
"
)
S{'(
This will extract all the les in the le archive.
, including any directories in the
The zip utilities have several advanced options for creating self-extracting archives, leaving out les, controlling compressed le size, printing out what will happen, and much more. See the man pages for zip and unzip to nd out how to use these options.
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Chapter 16
Vi
is the standard Unix text editing program, and while mastering it is not as essential as it once was, is still a very rewarding goal. There are several versions (or clones) of vi available, including vi, elvis, vile, and vim. One of these is available on just about any version of Unix, as well as on Linux. All of these versions include the same basic feature set and commands, so learning one clone should make it easy to learn another. With the variety of text editors included with Linux distributions and Unix variants these days, many people no longer use vi. Still, it remains the most universal text editor across Unix and Unix work-alikes. Mastering vi means you should never be sitting at a Unix machine and not be comfortable with at least one powerful text editor. includes a number of powerful features including syntax highlighting, code formatting, a powerful search-and-replace mechanism, macros, and more. These features make it especially attractive to programmers, web developers, and the like. System administrators will appreciate the automation and integration with the shell that is possible.
vi vi(1)
On Slackware Linux, the default version of vi available is elvis. Other versions including vim and gvim - are available if youve installed the proper packages. gvim is an X Window version of vim that includes toolbars, detachable menus, and dialog boxes.
16.1 Starting vi
vi
can be started from the command line in a variety of ways. The simplest form is
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Chapter 16 Vi just:
%
vi
Figure 16-1. A vi session.
This will start up vi with an empty buffer. At this point, youll see a mostly blank screen. It is now in command mode, waiting for you to do something. For a discussion of the various vi modes, see the Section 16.2. In order to quit out of vi, type the following:
:q
Assuming that there have been no changes to the le, this will cause vi to quit. If there have been changes made, it will warn you that there have been changes and tell you how to disregard them. Disregarding changes usually means appending an
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Chapter 16 Vi exclamation point after the q like so:

:q!
The exclamation point usually means to force some action. Well discuss it and other key combinations in further details later. You can also start vi with a pre-existing le. For example, the le would be opened like so:
%

)#$!
)"
vi /etc/resolv.conf
Finally, vi can be started on a particular line of a le. This is especially useful for programmers when an error message includes the line their program bombed on. For '&& )= * $! example, you could start up vi on line 47 of like so: %
vi +47 /usr/src/linux/init/main.c
vi
will display the given le and will place the cursor at the specied line. In the case where you specify a line that is after the end of the le, vi will place the cursor on the last line. This is especially helpful for programmers, as they can jump straight to the location in the le that an error occurred, without having to search for it.
16.2 Modes
operates in various modes, which are used to accomplish various tasks. When you rst start vi, you are placed into command mode. From this point, you can issue various commands to manipulate text, move around in the le, save, quit, and change modes. Editing the text is done in insert mode. You can quickly move between modes with a variety of keystrokes, which are explained below.
vi
Command Mode
You are rst placed into command mode. From this mode, you cannot directly enter
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Chapter 16 Vi text or edit what is already there. However, you can manipulate the text, search, quit, save, load new les, and more. This is intended only to be an introduction to the command mode. For a description of the various commands, see Section 16.7. Probably the most often used command in command mode is changing to insert mode. This is accomplished by hitting the i key. The cursor changes shapes, and -INSERT -- is displayed at the bottom of the screen (note that this does not happen in all clones of vi). From there, all your keystrokes are entered into the current buffer and are displayed to the screen. To get back into command mode, hit the ESCAPE key. Command mode is also where you move around in the le. On some systems, you can use the arrow keys to move around. On other systems, you may need to use the more traditional keys of hjkl. Here is a simple listing of how these keys are used to move around: h j k l move left one character move down one character move up one character move right one character
Simply press a key to move. As you will see later, these keys can be combined with a number to move much more efciently. Many of the commands that you will use in command mode begin with a colon. For example, quitting is :q, as discussed earlier. The colon simply indicates that it is a command, while the q tells vi to quit. Other commands are an optional number, followed by a letter. These commands do not have a colon before them, and are generally used to manipulate the text. For example, deleting one line from a le is accomplished by hitting dd. This will remove the line that the cursor is on. Issuing the command 4dd would tell vi to remove the line that the cursor is on and the three after that. In general, the number tells vi how many times to perform the command. You can combine a number with the movement keys to move around several charac-
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Chapter 16 Vi ters at a time. For example, 10k would move up ten lines on the screen. Command mode can also be used to cut and paste, insert text, and read other les into the current buffer. Copying text is accomplished with the y key (y stands for yank). Copying the current line is done by typing yy, and this can be prexed with a number to yank more lines. Then, move to the location for the copy and hit p. The text is pasted on the line after the current one. Cutting text is done by typing dd, and p can be used to paste the cut text back into the le. Reading in text from another le is a simple procedure. Just type :r, followed by a space and the le name that contains the text to be inserted. The les contents will be pasted into the current buffer on the line after the cursor. More sophisticated vi clones even contain lename completion similar to the shells. The nal use that will be covered is searching. Command mode allows for simple searching, as well as complicated search-and-replace commands that make use of a powerful version of regular expressions. A complete discussion of regular expressions is beyond the scope of this chapter, so this section will only cover simple means of searching. A simple search is accomplished by hitting the / key, followed by the text that you are searching for. vi will search forward from the cursor to the end of the le for a match, stopping when it nds one. Note that inexact matches will cause vi to stop as well. For example, a search for the will cause vi to stop on then, therefore, and so on. This is because all of those words do match the. After vi has found the rst match, you can continue on to the next match simply by hitting the / key followed by enter. You can also search backwards through the le by replacing the slash with the ? key. For example, searching backwards through the le for the would be accomplished by typing ?the.
Insert Mode
Inserting and replacing text is accomplished in insert mode. As previously discussed, you can get into insert mode by hitting i from command mode. Then, all text that
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Chapter 16 Vi you type is entered into the current buffer. Hitting the ESCAPE key takes you back into command mode. Replacing text is accomplished in several ways. From command mode, hitting r will allow you to replace the one character underneath the cursor. Just type the new character and it will replace the one under the cursor. You will then be immediately placed back into command mode. Hitting R allows you to replace as many characters as youd like. To get out of this replacement mode, just hit ESCAPE to go back into command mode. There is yet another way to toggle between insertion and replacement. Hitting the INSERT key from command mode will take you into insert mode. Once you are in insert mode, the keyboards INSERT key serves as a toggle between insert and replace. Hitting it once will allow you to replace. Hitting it once more will once again allow you to insert text.
16.3 Opening Files

allows you to open les from command mode as well as specifying a le on the )
G!
)" : command line to open. To open the le
vi :e /etc/lilo.conf
If you have made changes to the current buffer without saving, vi will complain. You can still open the le without saving the current buffer by typing :e!, followed by a space and the lename. In general, vis warnings can be suppressed by following the command with an exclamation mark. If you want to reopen the current le, you can do so simply by typing e!. This is particularly useful if you have somehow messed up the le and want to reopen it. Some vi clones (for example, vim) allow for multiple buffers to be open at the same p) #l9 time. For example, to open up the le : - in my home directory while another le was open, I would type:
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Chapter 16 Vi
:split ~/09-vi.sgml
The new le is displayed on the top half of the screen, and the old le is displayed in the bottom half of the screen. There are a lot of commands that manipulate the split screen, and many of these commands start to resemble something out of Emacs The best place to look up these commands would be the man page for your vi clone. Note that many clones do not support the split-screen idea, so you might not be able to use it at all.
16.4 Saving Files

There are several ways to save les in *)
) , you would type: the le
:w randomness vi.
If you want to save the current buffer to
Once youve saved the le once, saving it again is as simple as typing :w. Any changes will be written out to the le. After youve saved the le, you are dumped back into command mode. If you want to save the le and quit vi (a very common operation), you would type :wq. That tells vi to save the current le and quit back to the shell. On occasion, you want to save a le that is marked as read-only. You can do this by adding an exclamation point after the write command, like so:
:w!
However, there will still be instances where you cannot write the le (for example, you are attempting to edit a le that is owned by another user). When this happens, vi will tell you that it cannot save the le. If you really want to edit the le, youll have to come back and edit it as root or (preferably) the owner of that le.
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16.5 Quitting vi
One way to quit vi is through :wq, which will save the current buffer before quitting. You can also quit without saving with :q or (more commonly) :q!. The latter is used when youve modied the le but do not wish to save any changes to it. On occasion, your machine might crash or vi might crash. However, both elvis and vim will take steps to minimize the damage to any open buffers. Both editors save the open buffers to a temporary le on occasion. This le is usually named similarly to the open le, but with a dot at the beginning. This makes the le hidden. This temporary le gets removed once the editor quits under normal conditions. This means that the temporary copy will still be around if something crashes. When you go back to edit the le again, you will be prompted for what action to take. In most cases, a large amount of your unsaved work can be recovered. elvis will also send you a mail (from Graceland, oddly enough :) telling you that a backup copy exists.
16.6 vi Conguration
Your vi clone of choice can be congured in several ways. A variety of commands can be entered while in command mode to set up vi just how you like it. Depending on your editor, you can enable features to make programming easier (like syntax hilighting, auto-indenting, and more), set up macros to automake tasks, enable textual substitutions, and more. Almost all of these commands can be put into a conguration le in your home o= v# directory. elvis expects a le, while vim expects a - le. Most of the setup commands that can be entered in command mode can be placed in the conguration le. This includes setup information, textual substitutions, macros, and more. Discussing all these options and the differences between the editors is quite an involved subject. For more information, check out the man page or web site for your preferred vi editor. Some editors (like vim) have extensive help within the editor that
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Chapter 16 Vi can be accessed with the :help command, or something similar. You can also check out the OReilly book Learning the vi Editor by Lamb and Robbins. Many common programs in Linux will load up a text le in vi by default. For example, editing your crontabs will start up vi by default. If you do not like vi and would like another editor to be started instead, all you need to do is set the VISUAL environment variable to the editor you prefer. For information on setting environment variables, see the section called Environment Variables in Chapter 8. If you want to make sure that your editor will be the default every time you login, add the VISUAL +*&%(
"' v+ *&% or les. setting to your
16.7 Vi Keys
This section is a quick reference of many common vi commands. Some of these were discussed earlier in the chapter, while many will be new. Table 16-1. Movement Operation left, down, up, right To the end of the line To the beginning of the line To the end of the le To the beginning of the le To line 47 Table 16-2. Editing Operation Removing a line Removing ve lines Replacing a character Key dd 5dd r Key h, j, k, l $ ^ G :1 :47
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Chapter 16 Vi
Operation Removing a character Removing ten characters Undo last action Join current and next lines Replace old with new, globally Table 16-3. Searching Operation Search for asdf Search backwards for asdf Repeat last search forwards Repeat last search backwards Repeat last search, same direction Repeat last search, opposite direction Table 16-4. Saving and Quitting Operation Quit Quit without saving Write and quit Write, without quitting Reload currently open le *&)" Write buffer to le %)*{ Open le *&)" Read le into buffer Read output of ls into buffer
Key x 10x u J %soldnewg
Key /asdf ?asdf / ? n N
Key :q :q! :wq :w :e! :w asdf :e hejaz :r asdf :r !ls
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Emacs
While vi (with its clones) is without a doubt the most ubiquitous editor on Unix-like systems, Emacs comes in a good second. Instead of using different modes, like vi does, it uses Control and Alt key combinations to enter commands, in much the same way that you can use Control and Alt key combinations in a word processor and indeed in many other applications to execute certain functions. (Though it should be noted that the commands rarely correspond; so while many modern applications use Ctrl-C/ X/ V for copying, cutting and pasting, Emacs uses different keys and actually a somewhat different mechanism for this.) Also unlike vi, which is an (excellent) editor and nothing more, Emacs is a program with near endless capabilities. Emacs is (for the most part) written in Lisp, which is a very powerful programming language that has the peculiar property that every program written in it is automatically a Lisp compiler of its own. This means that the user can extend Emacs, and in fact write completely new programs in Emacs. As a result, Emacs is not just an editor anymore. There are many add-on packages for Emacs available (many come with the programs source) that provide all sorts of functionality. Many of these are related to text editing, which is after all Emacs basic task, but it doesnt stop there. There are for example several spreadsheet programs for Emacs, there are databases, games, mail and news clients (the top one being Gnus), etc. There are two main versions of Emacs: GNU Emacs (which is the version that comes with Slackware) and XEmacs. The latter is not a version for Emacs running under X. In fact, both Emacs and XEmacs run on the console as well as under X. XEmacs was once started as a project to tidy up the Emacs code. Currently, both versions
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Chapter 17 Emacs are being actively developed, and there is in fact much interaction between the two development teams. For the present chapter, it is immaterial whether you use Emacs or XEmacs, the differences between them are not relevant to the normal user.
17.1 Starting emacs

Emacs can be started from the shell by simply typing emacs. When you are running X, Emacs will (normally) come up with its own X window, usually with a menu bar at the top, where you can nd the most important functions. On startup, Emacs will rst show a welcome message, and then after a few seconds will drop you in the *scratch* buffer. (See Section 17.2.)
You can also start Emacs on an existing le by typing

%
emacs /etc/resolv.conf
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Chapter 17 Emacs This will cause Emacs to load the specied le when it starts up, skipping the welcome message.
Command Keys
As mentioned above, Emacs uses Control and Alt combinations for commands. The usual convention is to write these with C-letter and M-letter, respectively. So C-x means Control+x, and M-x means Alt+x. (The letter M is used instead of A because originally the key was not the Alt key but the Meta key. The Meta key has all but disappeared from computer keyboards, and in Emacs the Alt key has taken over its function.) Many Emacs commands consist of sequences of keys and key combinations. For example, C-x C-c (that is Control-x followed by Control-c ) quits Emacs, C-x C-s saves the current le. Keep in mind that C-x C-b is not the same as C-x b. The former means Control-x followed by Control-b, while the latter means Control-x followed by just b.
17.2 Buffers
In Emacs, the concept of buffers is essential. Every le that you open is loaded into its own buffer. Furthermore, Emacs has several special buffers, which do not contain a le but are used for other things. Such special buffers usually have a name that starts and ends with an asterisk. For example, the buffer that Emacs shows when it is rst started, is the so-called *scratch* buffer. In the *scratch* buffer, you can type text in the normal way, but text that is typed there is not saved when Emacs is closed. There is one other special buffer you need to know about, and that is the minibuffer. This buffer consists of only one line, and is always on the screen: it is the very last line of the Emacs window, below the status bar for the current buffer. The minibuffer is where Emacs shows messages for the user, and it is also the place where com-
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Chapter 17 Emacs mands that require some user input are executed. For example, when you open a le, Emacs will ask for its name in the minibuffer. Switching from one buffer to another can be done with the command C-x b. This will prompt you for the name of a buffer (a buffers name is usually the name of the le you are editing in it), and it gives a default choice, which is normally the buffer that you were in before you switched to or created the current buffer. Just hitting Enter will switch to that default buffer. If you want to switch to another buffer than the default offered by Emacs, just type its name. Note that you can use so-called Tab-completion here: type the rst few letters of the buffers name and hit Tab; Emacs will then complete the name of the buffer. Tab completion works everywhere in Emacs where it makes sense. You can get a list of open buffers by hitting C-x C-b. This command will usually split the screen in two, displaying the buffer you were working in in the top half, and a new buffer called *Buffer List* in the bottom half. This buffer contains a list of all the buffers, their sizes and modes, and the les, if any, that those buffers are visiting (as it is called in Emacs). You can get rid of this split screen by typing C-x 1.
Note: Under X, the list of buffers is also available in the Buffer menu in the menu bar.
17.3 Modes
Every buffer in Emacs has an associated mode. This mode is very different from the idea of modes in vi: a mode tells you what kind of buffer you are in. For example, there is text-mode for normal text les, but there are also modes such as c-mode for A editing C programs, sh-mode for editing shell scripts, latex-mode for editing L TEX les, mail-mode for editing email and news messages, etc. A mode provides special customizations and functionality that is useful for the kind of le you are editing. It is even possible for a mode to redene keys and key commands. For example, in
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Chapter 17 Emacs Text mode, the Tab key simply jumps to the next tab stop, but in many programming language modes, the Tab key indents the current line according to the depth of the block that line is in. The modes mentioned above are called major modes. Each buffer has exactly one major mode. Additionally, a buffer can have one or more minor modes. A minor mode provides additional features that may be useful for certain editing tasks. For example, if you hit the INSERT key, you invoke overwrite-mode, which does what youd expect. There is also an auto-ll-mode, which is handy in combination with text-mode or latex-mode: it causes each line that you type to be automatically wrapped once the line reaches a certain number of characters. Without auto-llmode, you have to type M-q to ll out a paragraph. (Which you can also use to reformat a paragraph after youve edited some text in it and it is no longer nicely lled out.)
Opening les
To open a le in Emacs, type
C-x C-f
Emacs will ask you for the name of the le, lling in some default path for you (which is usually ). After you type the lename (you can use Tab completion) and hit ENTER , Emacs will open the le in a new buffer and display that buffer on the screen.
Note: Emacs will automatically create a new buffer, it will not load the le into the current buffer.
In order to create a new le in emacs, you cannot just go typing right away. You rst have to create a buffer for it, and come up with a lename. You do this by typing C-x C-f and typing a lename, just as if you were opening an existing le. Emacs will
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Chapter 17 Emacs notice that the le you typed doesnt exist, and will create a new buffer and report (New le) in the minibuffer. When you type C-x C-f and then enter a directory name instead of a lename, Emacs will create a new buffer in which you will nd a list of all the les in that directory. You can move the cursor to the le that you are looking for and type , and Emacs will open it. (There are in fact a lot more actions you can perform here, such as deleting, renaming and moving les, etc. Emacs is now in dired-mode, which is basically a simple le manager.) When you have typed C-x C-f and suddenly change your mind, you can type C-g to cancel the action. C-g works almost everywhere where you want to cancel an action or command that youve started but dont want to nish.
17.4 Basic Editing

When you have opened a le, you can of course move around in it with the cursor. The cursor keys and PgUp, PgDn do what youd expect. Home and End jump to the beginning and end of the line. (In older versions, they would actually jump to the beginning and end of the buffer.) However, there are also Control and Meta (Alt) key combos that move the cursor around. Because you do not need to move your hands to another part of the keyboard for these, they are much quicker once you get used to them. The most important such commands are listed in Table 17-1. Note that many Meta commands are parallel to the Control commands except that they operate on larger units: while C-f goes forward one character, M-f goes forward an entire word, etc. Also note that M-< and M-> require you to type Shift+Alt+comma and Shift+Alt+dot respectively, since < and > are on Shift+comma and Shift+dot. (Unless of course you have a different keyboard layout from the standard US layout.) Note that C-k deletes (kills, as it is commonly called) all the text after the cursor to
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Table 17-1. Basic Emacs Editing Commands Command C-b C-f C-n C-p C-a C-e M-b M-f M-} M-{ M-a M-e C-d M-d C-v M-v M-< M-> C-_ C-k C-s C-r Result go one character back go one character forward go one line down go one line up go to the beginning of the line go to the end of the line go one word back go one word forward go one paragraph forward go one paragraph backward go one sentence backward go one sentence forward delete the character under the cursor delete until the end of the current word go down one screen (i.e., PgDn) go up one screen (i.e., PgUp) go to the beginning of the buffer go to the end of the buffer undo the last change (can be repeated); note that you actually have to type Shift+Control+hyphen for this. delete to end of line forward search backward search
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Chapter 17 Emacs the end of the line, but doesnt delete the line itself (i.e., it doesnt delete the nal newline). It only deletes the line if there was no text after the cursor. In other words, in order to delete a complete line, you have to put the cursor at the beginning of the line, and then hit C-k twice: once to delete the text on the line, once to delete the line itself.
17.5 Saving Files

In order to save a le, you type
C-x C-s
Emacs will not ask you for a lename, the buffer will just be saved to the le it was loaded from. If you want to save your text to another le, type
C-x C-w
When you save the le for the rst time in this session, Emacs will normally save the old version of your le to a backup le, which has the same name appended with *= *'=) , Emacs will create a backup a tilde: so if youre editing a le . This backup le is a copy of the le that you opened. While you are working, Emacs will also regularly create an auto-save copy of the work you are doing, to a le *=) . This backup is deleted when you save the le named with hash signs: with C-x C-s. When you are done editing a le, you can kill the buffer that holds it by typing
C-x k
Emacs will then ask you which buffer you want to kill, with the current buffer as default, which you can select by hitting ENTER. If you havent saved your le yet, Emacs will ask you if you really want to kill the buffer.
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Quitting Emacs
When you are done with Emacs altogether, you can type
C-x C-c
This quits Emacs. If you have any unsaved les, Emacs will tell you so, and ask if you want to save them each in turn. If you answer no to any of these, Emacs will ask for one nal conrmation and then quit.
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Chapter 18
Slackware Package Management

A software package is a bundle of related programs that are ready for you to install. When you download a source code archive, you have to congure, compile, and install it by hand. With a software package, this has already been done for you. All that you have to do is install the package. Another handy feature of using software packages is that it is very easy to remove and upgrade them, if you so desire. Slackware comes with programs for all your package management needs. You can install, remove, upgrade, make, and examine packages very easily. Theres a myth thats been going around ever since RedHat debuted RedHat Package Manager, that Slackware has no package management tool. This simply couldnt be further from the truth. Slackware has always included a package manager, even before RedHat existed. While not as full-featured or as ubiquitous as rpm (or for that matter deb), pkgtool and its associated programs are every bit as good at installing packages as rpm. The truth about pkgtool is not that it doesnt exist, but that it doesnt do any dependency checking. Apparently many people in the Linux community think that a packager manager must by denition include dependency checking. Well, that simply isnt the case, as Slackware most certainly does not. This is not to say that Slackware packages dont have dependencies, but rather that its package manager doesnt check for them. Dependency management is left up to the sysadmin, and thats the way we like it.
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Chapter 18 Slackware Package Management
18.1 Overview of Package Format

Before learning the utilities, you should become familiar with the format of a Slackware package. In Slackware, a package is simply a tar archive le that has been compressed with gzip. Packages are built to be extracted in the root directory. Here is a ctitious program and its example package:
./ usr/ usr/bin/ usr/bin/makehejaz usr/doc/ usr/doc/makehejaz-1.0/ usr/doc/makehejaz-1.0/COPYING usr/doc/makehejaz-1.0/README usr/man/ usr/man/man1 usr/man/man1/makehejaz.1.gz install/ install/doinst.sh
The package system will extract this le in the root directory to install it. An entry in the package database will be created that contains the contents of this package so that it can be upgraded or removed later. Notice the subdirectory. This is a special directory that can contain a postin
$l% stallation script called . If the package system nds this le, it will execute it after installing the package. Other scripts can be embedded in the package, but those are discussed more in detail in Section 18.3.2 below.
'&*)
18.2 Package Utilities

There are four main utilities for package management. They perform installation, removal, and upgrades of packages.
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pkgtool
pkgtool(8)
is a menu-driven program that allows installation and removal of packages. The main menu is shown in Figure 18-1.
Figure 18-1. Pkgtools main menu.

Slackware Package Tool (pkgtool version 9.1.0)
Welcome to the Slackware package tool. Which option would you like? Current Other Floppy Remove View Setup Exit Install packages from the current directory Install packages from some other directory Install packages from floppy disks Remove packages that are currently installed View the list of files contained in a package Choose Slackware installation scripts to run again Exit Pkgtool
< OK > < Cancel >
Installation is offered from the current directory, another directory, or from oppy disks. Simply select the installation method you want and pkgtool will search that location for valid packages to install. You may also view a list of installed packages, as shown in Figure 18-2.
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Chapter 18 Slackware Package Management Figure 18-2. Pkgtool view mode

Please select the package you wish to view. a2ps-4.13b-i386-2 a2ps (any to PostScript filter) aaa_base-9.1.0-noarch aaa_base (Basic Linux filesystem pac aalib-1.4rc5-i386-1 aalib (ASCII Art library) _1l1vlvlvl abiword-2.0.0-i486-1 abiword (AbiWord Personal) acct-6.3.2-i386-1 acct (process accounting utilities) acme-2.4.0-i486-1 acme acpid-1.0.2-i486-1 acpid (ACPI daemon) alsa-driver-0.9.6-i48 alsa-driver (Advanced Linux Sound Ar alsa-lib-0.9.6-i486-1 alsa-lib (Advanced Linux Sound Archi alsa-oss-0.9.6-i486-1 alsa-oss (library/wrapper to use OSS
< OK > < Cancel >
If you want to remove packages, select the remove option and you will be presented with a checklist of all the installed packages. Flag the ones you want to remove and select OK. pkgtool will remove them. Some users prefer this utility to the command line utilities. However, it should be noted that the command line utilities offer many more options. Also, the ability to upgrade packages is only offered through the command line utilities.
installpkg
installpkg(8)
handles installation of new packages on the system. The syntax is as
follows:
#
installpkg option package_name
Three options are provided for installpkg. Only one option can be used at a time.
218
Chapter 18 Slackware Package Management Table 18-1. installpkg Options Option -m -warn Effects Performs a makepkg operation on the current directory. Shows what would happen if you installed the specied package. This is useful for production systems so you can see exactly what would happen before installing something. Recursively install all packages in the current directory and down. The package name can use wildcards, which would be used as the search mask when recursively installing.
-r
If you pass the ROOT environment variable before installpkg, that path will be used for the root directory. This is useful for setting up new drives for your root directory. ) They will typically be mounted to - or something other than . . The entry is reThe installed package database entry is stored in ally just a plain text le, one for each package. If the package has a postinstallation # *)
9)()' script, it is written to . You may specify several packages or use wildcards for the package name. Be advised that installpkg will not tell you if you are overwriting an installed package. It will simply install right on top of the old one. If you want to ensure that old les from the previous package are safely removed, use upgradepkg.
#* )
9(* *9
removepkg
removepkg(8)
handles removing installed packages from the system. The syntax is
as follows:
#
removepkg option package_name
Four options are provided for removepkg. Only one option may be used at a time.
219
Chapter 18 Slackware Package Management Table 18-2. removepkg Options Option -copy Effects The package is copied to the preserved packages directory. This creates a tree of the original package without removing it. Saves temporary les created during the removal. Really only useful for debugging purposes. The package is removed, but copied to the preserved packages directory at the same time. Shows what would happen if you removed the package.
-keep -preserve -warn
If you pass the ROOT environment variable before removepkg, that path will be used for the root directory. This is useful for setting up new drives for your root directory. ) They will typically be mounted to - or something other than . looks at the other installed packages and only removes les unique to the package you specify. It will also scan the postinstallation script for the specied package and remove any symbolic links that were created by it.
removepkg
During the removal process, a status report is displayed. After the removal, the pack#*)
9
#(* *9 age database entry is moved to and the postinstallation # *)
9
# script is moved to _scripts. Just as with installpkg, you can specify several packages or use wildcards for the package name.
upgradepkg
upgradepkg(8)
will upgrade an installed Slackware package. The syntax is as fol-
lows:
#
upgradepkg package_name
or
220
upgradepkg old_package_name%new_package_name
works by rst installing the new package and then removing the old package so that old les are no longer around on the system. If the upgraded package name has changed, use the percent sign syntax to specify the old package (the one that is installed) and the new package (the one you are upgrading it to).
upgradepkg
If you pass the ROOT environment variable before upgradepkg, that path will be used for the root directory. This is useful for setting up new drives for your root directory. ) They will typically be mounted to - or something other than . is not awless. You should always back up your conguration les. If they get removed or overwritten, youll want a copy of the originals for any needed repair work.
upgradepkg
Just as with installpkg and removepkg, you can specify several packages or use wildcards for the package name.
rpm2tgz /rpm2targz
The Red Hat Package Manager is a popular packaging system available today. Many software distributors are offering their products in RPM format. Since this is not our native format, we do not recommend people rely on them. However, some things are only available as an RPM (even the source). format. We provide a program that will convert RPM packages to our native This will allow you to extract the package (perhaps with explodepkg) to a temporary directory and examine its contents. The rpm2tgz program will create a Slackware package with a )( n*)9){ v*79{ creates an archive with a extension. )9{ )9{
extension, while
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18.3 Making Packages

Making Slackware packages can be either easy or difcult. There is no specic method for building a package. The only requirement is that the package be a tar ' *)
'&7!% gzipped le and if there is a postinstallation script, it must be . If you are interested in making packages for your system or for a network that you manage, you should have a look at the various build scripts in the Slackware source tree. There are several methods we use for making packages.
explodepkg
will do the same thing that installpkg does to extract the package, but it doesnt actually install it and it doesnt record it in the packages database. It simply extracts it to the current directory. If you look at the Slackware source tree, you will see how we use this command for framework packages. These packages contain a skeleton of what the nal package will look like. They hold all the necessary lenames (zero-length), permissions, and ownerships. The build script will cat the package contents from the source directory to the package build directory.
explodepkg(8)
makepkg
will package up the current directory into a valid Slackware package. It will search the tree for any symbolic links and add a creation block to the postinstallation script for creating them during the package install. It also warns of any zero-length les in the package tree. This command is typically run after you have created your package tree.
makepkg(8)
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SlackBuild Scripts
Slackware packages are built in many different ways by necessity. Not all software packages are written by their programmers to compile the same way. Many have compile time options that are not all included in the packages Slackware uses. Perhaps you need some of this functionality; youll need to compile your own package then. Fortunately for many Slackware packages, you can nd SlackBuild scripts in the packages source code. So what is a SlackBuild script? SlackBuild scripts are executable shell scripts that you run as root to congure, compile, and create Slackware packages. You can freely modify these scripts in the source directory and run them to create your own versions of the default Slackware packages.
18.4 Making Tags and Tagles (for setup)

The Slackware setup program handles installation of the software packages on your system. There are les that tell the setup program which packages must be installed, which ones are optional, and which ones are selected by default by the setup program. A tagle is in the rst software series directory and is called tagle. It lists the packages in that particular disk set and their status. The status can be: Table 18-3. Tagle Status Options Option ADD SKP REC OPT Meaning The package is required for proper system operation The package will be automatically skipped The package is not required, but recommended The package is optional
The format is simply:
223
package_name: status
One package per line. The original tagles for each software series are stored as tagle.org. So if you mess up yours, you can restore the original one. Many administrators prefer writing their own tagles and starting the installer and selecting full. The setup program will read the tagles and perform the installation according to their contents. If you use REC or OPT, a dialog box will be presented to the user asking whether or not they want a particular package. Therefore, it is recommended that you stick with ADD and SKP when writing tagles for automated installs. Just make sure your tagles are written to the same location as the originals. Or you can specify a custom tagle path if you have custom tagles.
224
Chapter 19
ZipSlack
19.1 What is ZipSlack?
ZipSlack is a special version of Slackware Linux. Its an already installed copy of Slackware thats ready to run from your DOS or Windows partition. Its a basic installation, you do not get everything that comes with Slackware. ZipSlack gets its name from the form its distributed in, a big .ZIP le. Users of DOS and Windows will probably be familiar with these les. They are compressed archives. The ZipSlack archive contains everything you need to get up and running with Slackware. It is important to note that ZipSlack is signicantly different from a regular installation. Even though they function the same and contain the same programs, their intended audiences and functions differ. Several advantages and disadvantages of ZipSlack are discussed below. One last thing, you should always review the documentation included in the actual ZipSlack directory. It contains the latest information regarding installation, booting, and general use of the product.
Advantages
Does not require repartitioning of your hard disk.
225
Chapter 19 ZipSlack Great way to learn Slackware Linux without stumbling through the installation process.
Disadvantages

Uses the DOS lesystem, which is slower than a native Linux lesystem. Will not work with Windows NT.
19.2 Getting ZipSlack

Obtaining ZipSlack is easy. If you have purchased the ofcial Slackware Linux CD {'('* set, then you already have ZipSlack. Just nd the CD that contains the directory and place it in your CD-ROM drive. Its usually the third or fourth disc, but always trust the labels over this documentation as the disk it resides on is prone to change. If you want to download ZipSlack, you should rst visit our Get Slack web page for the latest download information:
EGFIFGHKJ/G/MLGLGLON1STSW76;\SLbW3$R]N65ZY[/ cbR Fb1GTSW76;\U/
ZipSlack is part of each Slackware release. Locate the release you want, and go to that directory on the FTP site. The latest release directory can be found at this location:
g FIHKJ/G/ g FGHKN1GTVW76;\SLQW3$R]N6V5Y[/ HG0Geb/G1GTSW76;\VLQW3$RG/G1GTSW76;\VLQW3$RG/ {('*
Youll nd ZipSlack in the subdirectory. ZipSlack is offered as one big o q& {'(')*( le or oppy-sized chunks. The chunks are in the directory. Dont stop at just the les. You should also download the documentation les and any boot images that appear in the directory.
q&
226
Chapter 19 ZipSlack
Installation
Once youve downloaded the necessary components, youll need to extract the le. Be sure to use a 32-bit unzipper. The size and lenames in the archive are too much for a 16-bit unzipper. Examples of 32-bit unzippers include WinZip and PKZIP for Windows. ZipSlack is designed to be extracted directly to the root directory of a drive (such <'q as C: or D:). A i directory will be created that contains the actual Slackware installation. Youll also nd the les necessary to booting the system in that directory as well. After youve extracted the les, you should have a your choosing (well use C: from here on).
<'q )i o q&
directory on the drive of
19.3 Booting ZipSlack

There are several ways to boot ZipSlack. The most common is to use the included LINUX.BAT to boot the system from DOS (or from DOS mode under Windows 9x). This le must be edited to match your system before it will work. Start by opening the ro i )i C)A le in your favorite text editor. At the top of the le you will notice a large comment. It explains what you need to edit in this le (and also what to do if you are booting from an external Zip drive). Dont worry if you dont understand the root= setting. There are several examples, so feel free to pick one and try it. If it doesnt work, you can edit the le again, comment out the line you uncommented, and pick another one. After you uncomment the line you want by removing the rem at the beginning of the line, save the le and exit the editor. Bring your machine into DOS mode. A DOS prompt window in Windows 9x will NOT work. Type C:\LINUX\LINUX.BAT to boot the system. If all goes well, you should be presented with a login prompt.
<'q <q
227
Chapter 19 ZipSlack Log in as root, with no password. Youll probably want to set a password for root, as well as adding an account for yourself. At this point you can refer to the other sections in this book for general system usage. If using the the included
<'q )CA le to boot the <q j h t ,h m r u i Ck A le )i
system didnt work for you, you should refer to for other ways to boot.
228
Glossary
Account All of the information about a user, including username, password, nger information, UID and GID, and home directory. To create an account is to add and dene a user.
Background Any process that is running without accepting or controlling the input of a terminal is said to be running in the background.
Boot disk A oppy disk containing an operating system (in our case, the Linux kernel) from which a computer can be started.
Compile To convert source code to machine-readable binary code.
Daemon A program designed to run in the background and, without user intervention, perform a specic task (usually providing a service).
229
Darkstar The default hostname in Slackware; your computer will be called darkstar if you do not specify some other name. One of Patrick Volkerdings development machines, named after Dark Star, a song by the Grateful Dead.
Desktop Environment A graphical user interface (GUI) that runs atop the X Window System and provides such features as integrated applications, cohesive look-and-feel between programs and components, le and window management capabilities, etc. A step beyond the simple window manager.
Device driver A chunk of code in the kernel that directly controls a piece of hardware.
Device node A special type of le in the nent to the operating system.

#
lesystem that represents a hardware compo-
DNS Domain Name Service. A system in which networked computers are given names which translate to numerical addresses.
230
Domain name A computers DNS name, excluding its host name.
Dot le In Linux, les which are to be hidden have lenames beginning with a dot (.).
Dotted quad The format of IP addresses, so called because it consists of four numbers (range 0-255 decimal) separated by periods.
Dynamic loader When programs are compiled under Linux, they usually use pieces of code (functions) from external libraries. When such programs are run, those libraries must be found and the required functions loaded into memory. This is the job of the dynamic loader.
Environment variable A variable set in the users shell which can be referenced by that user or programs run by that user within that shell. Environment variables are generally used to store preferences and default parameters.
Epoch A period of history; in Unix, The Epoch begins at 00:00:00 UTC January 1,
231
1970. This is considered the dawn of time by Unix and Unix-like operating systems, and all other time is calculated relative to this date.
Filesystem A representation of stored data in which les of data are kept organized in directories. The lesystem is the nearly universal form of representation for data stored to disks (both xed and removable).
Foreground A program that is accepting or controlling a terminals input is said to be running in the foreground.
Framebuffer A type of graphics device; in Linux, this most often refers to the software framebuffer, which provides a standard framebuffer interface to programs while keeping specic hardware drivers hidden from them. This layer of abstraction frees programs of the need to speak to various hardware drivers.
FTP The File Transfer Protocol. FTP is a very popular method of transferring data between computers.
Gateway A computer through which data on a network is transferred to another network.
232
GID Group Identier. The GID is a unique number attributed to a group of users.
Group Users in Unix belong to groups, which can contain many other users and are used for more general access control than the existence of users alone can easily allow.
GUI Graphical User Interface. A software interface that uses rendered graphical elements such as buttons, scrollbars, windows, etc. rather than solely text-based input and output
Home directory A users home directory is the directory the user is placed in immediately upon logging in. Users have full permissions and more or less free reign within their home directories.
HOWTO A document describing how to do something, such as congure a rewall or manage users and groups. There is a large collection of these documents available from the Linux Documentation Project.
233
HTTP The Hypertext Transfer Protocol. HTTP is the primary protocol on which the World Wide Web operates.
ICMP Internet Control Message Protocol. A very basic networking protocol, used mostly for pings.
Kernel The heart of an operating system. The kernel is the part that provides basic process control and interfaces with the computers hardware.
Kernel module A piece of kernel code, usually a driver of some sort, that can be loaded and unloaded from memory separately from the main body of the kernel. Modules are handy when upgrading drivers or testing kernel settings, because they can be loaded and unloaded without rebooting.
Library A collection of functions which can be shared between programs.
LILO The LInux LOader. LILO is the most widely-used Linux boot manager.
234
LOADLIN LOADLIN is a program that runs under MS DOS or Windows and boots a Linux system. It is most commonly used on computers with multiple operating systems (including Linux and DOS/Windows, of course).
Man section Pages in the standard Unix online manual ("man") are grouped into sections for easy reference. All C programming pages are in section 3, system administration pages in section 5, etc.
MBR The Master Boot Record. A reserved space on a hard drive where information on what to do when booting is stored. LILO or other boot managers can be written here.
Motif A popular programming toolkit used in many older X programs.
MOTD Message of the Day. The motd (stored in Linux in is a text le that is displayed to all users upon logging in. Traditionally, it is used by the system administrator as a sort of bulletin board for communicating with users.
)

235
Mount point An empty directory in a lesystem where another lesystem is to be mounted, or grafted on.
Nameserver A DNS information server. Nameservers translate DNS names to numerical IP addresses.
Network interface A virtual representation of a network device provided by the kernel. Network interfaces allow users and programs to talk to network devices.
NFS The Network Filesystem. NFS allows the mounting of remote lesystems as if they were local to your computer and thus provides a transparent method of le sharing.
Octal Base-8 number system, with digits 0-7.
Pager An X program that allows the user to see and switch between multiple desktops.
236
Partition A division of a hard drive. Filesystems exist on top of partitions.
PPP Point-to-Point Protocol. PPP is used mainly for connecting via modem to an Internet Service Provider.
Process A running program.
Root directory Represented as /, the root directory exists at the top of the lesystem, with all other directories branching out beneath it in a le tree.
Root disk The disk (usually xed) on which the root directory is stored.
Routing table The set of information the kernel uses in routing network data around. It contains such tidbits as where your default gateway is, which network interface is connected to which network, etc.
237
Runlevel The overall system state as dened by init. Runlevel 6 is rebooting, runlevel 1 is single user mode, runlevel 4 is an X login, etc. There are 6 available runlevels on a Slackware system.
Secure shell An encrypted (thus secure) method of logging in remotely to a computer. Many secure shell programs are available; both a client and server are needed.
Service The sharing of information and/or data between programs and computers from a single server to multiple clients. HTTP, FTP, NFS, etc. are services.
Shadow password suite The shadow password suite allows encrypted passwords to be hidden from )( *). users, while the rest of the information in the le remains visible to all. This helps prevent brute-force attempts at cracking passwords.
Shell Shells provide a commandline interface to the user. When youre looking at a text prompt, youre in a shell.
238
Shell builtin A command built into the shell, as opposed to being provided by an external program. For instance, bash has a cd builtin.
Signal Unix programs can communicate between each other using simple signals, which are enumerated and usually have specic meanings. kill -l will list the available signals.
SLIP Serial Line Interface Protocol. SLIP is a similar protocol to PPP, in that its used for connecting two machines via a serial interface.
Software package A program and its associated les, archived and compressed into a single le along with any necessary scripts or information to aid in managing the installation, upgrade, and removal of those les.
Software series A collection of related software packages in Slackware. All KDE packages are in the kde series, networking packages in the n series, etc.
239
Source code The (more or less) human-readable code in which most programs are written. Source code is compiled into binary code.
Standard Error (stderr) The Unix-standard output stream for errors. Programs write any error messages on stderr, so that they can be separated from normal output.
Standard Input (stdin) The Unix-standard input stream. Data can be redirected or piped into a programs stdin from any source.
Standard Output (stdout) The Unix-standard output stream. Normal text output from a program is written to stdout, which is separate from the error messages reported on stderr and can be piped or redirected into other programs stdin or to a le.
Subnet An IP address range that is part of a larger range. For instance, 192.168.1.0 is a subnet of 192.168.0.0 (where 0 is a mask meaning undened); it is, in fact, the .1 subnet.
240
Superblock In Linux, partitions are discussed in terms of blocks. A block is 512 bytes. The superblock is the rst 512 bytes of a partition.
Supplemental disk In Slackware, a oppy disk used during installation that contains neither the kernel (which is on the boot disk) nor the root lesystem (which is on the root disk), but additional needed les such as network modules or PCMCIA support.
Suspended process A process which has been frozen until killed or resumed.
Swap space Disk space used by the kernel as virtual RAM. It is slower than RAM, but because disk space is cheaper, swap is usually more plentiful. Swap space is useful to the kernel for holding lesser-used data and as a fallback when physical RAM is exhausted.
Symbolic link A special le that simply points to the location of another le. Symbolic links are used to avoid data duplication when a le is needed in multiple locations.
241
Tagle A le used by the Slackware setup program during installation, which describes a set of packages to be installed.
Terminal A human-computer interface consisting of at least a screen (or virtual screen) and some method of input (almost always at least a keyboard).
Toolkit, GUI A GUI toolkit is a collection of libraries that provide a programmer with code to draw widgets such as scrollbars, checkboxes, etc. and construct a graphical interface. The GUI toolkit used by a program often denes its look and feel.
UID User Identier. A unique number that identies a user to the system. UIDs are used by most programs instead of usernames because a number is easier to deal with; usernames are generally only used when the user has to see things happen.
VESA Video Electronics Standards Association. The term VESA is often used to denote a standard specied by said Association. Nearly all modern video adapters are VESA-compliant.
242
Virtual terminal The use of software to simulate multiple terminals while using only a single set of input/output devices (keyboard, monitor, mouse). Special keystrokes switch between virtual terminals at a single physical terminal.
Window manager An X program whose purpose is to provide a graphical interface beyond the simple rectangle-drawing of the X Window System. Window managers generally provide titlebars, menus for running programs, etc.
Working directory The directory in which a program considers itself to be while running.
Wrapper program A program whose sole purpose is to run other programs, but change their behavior in some way by altering their environments or ltering their input.
X server The program in the X Window System which interfaces with graphics hardware and handles the actual running of X programs.
243
X Window System Network-oriented graphical interface system used on most Unix-like operating systems, including Linux.
244
Appendix A.
The GNU General Public License

GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE Version 2, June 1991 Copyright (C) 1989, 1991 Free Software Foundation, Inc. 59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307 USA Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies of this license document, but changing it is not allowed. Preamble The licenses for most software are designed to take away your freedom to share and change it. By contrast, the GNU General Public License is intended to guarantee your freedom to share and change free software--to make sure the software is free for all its users. This General Public License applies to most of the Free Software Foundations software and to any other program whose authors commit to using it. (Some other Free Software Foundation software is covered by the GNU Library General Public License instead.) You can apply it to your programs, too. When we speak of free software, we are referring to freedom, not price. Our General Public Licenses are designed to make sure that you have the freedom to distribute copies of free software (and charge for this service if you wish), that you receive
245
Appendix A. The GNU General Public License source code or can get it if you want it, that you can change the software or use pieces of it in new free programs; and that you know you can do these things. To protect your rights, we need to make restrictions that forbid anyone to deny you these rights or to ask you to surrender the rights. These restrictions translate to certain responsibilities for you if you distribute copies of the software, or if you modify it. For example, if you distribute copies of such a program, whether gratis or for a fee, you must give the recipients all the rights that you have. You must make sure that they, too, receive or can get the source code. And you must show them these terms so they know their rights. We protect your rights with two steps: (1) copyright the software, and (2) offer you this license which gives you legal permission to copy, distribute and/or modify the software. Also, for each authors protection and ours, we want to make certain that everyone understands that there is no warranty for this free software. If the software is modied by someone else and passed on, we want its recipients to know that what they have is not the original, so that any problems introduced by others will not reect on the original authors reputations. Finally, any free program is threatened constantly by software patents. We wish to avoid the danger that redistributors of a free program will individually obtain patent licenses, in effect making the program proprietary. To prevent this, we have made it clear that any patent must be licensed for everyones free use or not licensed at all. The precise terms and conditions for copying, distribution and modication follow.
TERMS AND CONDITIONS TERMS AND CONDITIONS FOR COPYING, DISTRIBUTION AND MODIFICATION
246
Appendix A. The GNU General Public License 1. This License applies to any program or other work which contains a notice placed by the copyright holder saying it may be distributed under the terms of this General Public License. The Program, below, refers to any such program or work, and a work based on the Program means either the Program or any derivative work under copyright law: that is to say, a work containing the Program or a portion of it, either verbatim or with modications and/or translated into another language. (Hereinafter, translation is included without limitation in the term modication.) Each licensee is addressed as you. Activities other than copying, distribution and modication are not covered by this License; they are outside its scope. The act of running the Program is not restricted, and the output from the Program is covered only if its contents constitute a work based on the Program (independent of having been made by running the Program). Whether that is true depends on what the Program does.
2. You may copy and distribute verbatim copies of the Programs source code as you receive it, in any medium, provided that you conspicuously and appropriately publish on each copy an appropriate copyright notice and disclaimer of warranty; keep intact all the notices that refer to this License and to the absence of any warranty; and give any other recipients of the Program a copy of this License along with the Program. You may charge a fee for the physical act of transferring a copy, and you may at your option offer warranty protection in exchange for a fee.
3. You may modify your copy or copies of the Program or any portion of it, thus forming a work based on the Program, and copy and distribute such modications or work under the terms of Section 1 above, provided that you also meet all of these conditions: a. You must cause the modied les to carry prominent notices stating that you changed the les and the date of any change.
247
Appendix A. The GNU General Public License b. You must cause any work that you distribute or publish, that in whole or in part contains or is derived from the Program or any part thereof, to be licensed as a whole at no charge to all third parties under the terms of this License. c. If the modied program normally reads commands interactively when run, you must cause it, when started running for such interactive use in the most ordinary way, to print or display an announcement including an appropriate copyright notice and a notice that there is no warranty (or else, saying that you provide a warranty) and that users may redistribute the program under these conditions, and telling the user how to view a copy of this License. (Exception: if the Program itself is interactive but does not normally print such an announcement, your work based on the Program is not required to print an announcement.) These requirements apply to the modied work as a whole. If identiable sections of that work are not derived from the Program, and can be reasonably considered independent and separate works in themselves, then this License, and its terms, do not apply to those sections when you distribute them as separate works. But when you distribute the same sections as part of a whole which is a work based on the Program, the distribution of the whole must be on the terms of this License, whose permissions for other licensees extend to the entire whole, and thus to each and every part regardless of who wrote it. Thus, it is not the intent of this section to claim rights or contest your rights to work written entirely by you; rather, the intent is to exercise the right to control the distribution of derivative or collective works based on the Program. In addition, mere aggregation of another work not based on the Program with the Program (or with a work based on the Program) on a volume of a storage or distribution medium does not bring the other work under the scope of this License.
4. You may copy and distribute the Program (or a work based on it, under Section
248
Appendix A. The GNU General Public License 2) in object code or executable form under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above provided that you also do one of the following: a. Accompany it with the complete corresponding machine-readable source code, which must be distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium customarily used for software interchange; or, b. Accompany it with a written offer, valid for at least three years, to give any third party, for a charge no more than your cost of physically performing source distribution, a complete machine-readable copy of the corresponding source code, to be distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium customarily used for software interchange; or, c. Accompany it with the information you received as to the offer to distribute corresponding source code. (This alternative is allowed only for noncommercial distribution and only if you received the program in object code or executable form with such an offer, in accord with Subsection b above.) The source code for a work means the preferred form of the work for making modications to it. For an executable work, complete source code means all the source code for all modules it contains, plus any associated interface denition les, plus the scripts used to control compilation and installation of the executable. However, as a special exception, the source code distributed need not include anything that is normally distributed (in either source or binary form) with the major components (compiler, kernel, and so on) of the operating system on which the executable runs, unless that component itself accompanies the executable. If distribution of executable or object code is made by offering access to copy from a designated place, then offering equivalent access to copy the source code from the same place counts as distribution of the source code, even though third parties are not compelled to copy the source along with the object code.
5. You may not copy, modify, sublicense, or distribute the Program except as expressly provided under this License. Any attempt otherwise to copy, modify,
249
Appendix A. The GNU General Public License sublicense or distribute the Program is void, and will automatically terminate your rights under this License. However, parties who have received copies, or rights, from you under this License will not have their licenses terminated so long as such parties remain in full compliance. 6. You are not required to accept this License, since you have not signed it. However, nothing else grants you permission to modify or distribute the Program or its derivative works. These actions are prohibited by law if you do not accept this License. Therefore, by modifying or distributing the Program (or any work based on the Program), you indicate your acceptance of this License to do so, and all its terms and conditions for copying, distributing or modifying the Program or works based on it. 7. Each time you redistribute the Program (or any work based on the Program), the recipient automatically receives a license from the original licensor to copy, distribute or modify the Program subject to these terms and conditions. You may not impose any further restrictions on the recipients exercise of the rights granted herein. You are not responsible for enforcing compliance by third parties to this License. 8. If, as a consequence of a court judgment or allegation of patent infringement or for any other reason (not limited to patent issues), conditions are imposed on you (whether by court order, agreement or otherwise) that contradict the conditions of this License, they do not excuse you from the conditions of this License. If you cannot distribute so as to satisfy simultaneously your obligations under this License and any other pertinent obligations, then as a consequence you may not distribute the Program at all. For example, if a patent license would not permit royalty-free redistribution of the Program by all those who receive copies directly or indirectly through you, then the only way you could satisfy both it and this License would be to refrain entirely from distribution of the Program. If any portion of this section is held invalid or unenforceable under any particular circumstance, the balance of the section is intended to apply and the section as a whole is intended to apply in other circumstances.
250
Appendix A. The GNU General Public License It is not the purpose of this section to induce you to infringe any patents or other property right claims or to contest validity of any such claims; this section has the sole purpose of protecting the integrity of the free software distribution system, which is implemented by public license practices. Many people have made generous contributions to the wide range of software distributed through that system in reliance on consistent application of that system; it is up to the author/donor to decide if he or she is willing to distribute software through any other system and a licensee cannot impose that choice. This section is intended to make thoroughly clear what is believed to be a consequence of the rest of this License.
9. If the distribution and/or use of the Program is restricted in certain countries either by patents or by copyrighted interfaces, the original copyright holder who places the Program under this License may add an explicit geographical distribution limitation excluding those countries, so that distribution is permitted only in or among countries not thus excluded. In such case, this License incorporates the limitation as if written in the body of this License. 10. The Free Software Foundation may publish revised and/or new versions of the General Public License from time to time. Such new versions will be similar in spirit to the present version, but may differ in detail to address new problems or concerns. Each version is given a distinguishing version number. If the Program species a version number of this License which applies to it and any later version, you have the option of following the terms and conditions either of that version or of any later version published by the Free Software Foundation. If the Program does not specify a version number of this License, you may choose any version ever published by the Free Software Foundation.
11. If you wish to incorporate parts of the Program into other free programs whose distribution conditions are different, write to the author to ask for permission.
251
Appendix A. The GNU General Public License For software which is copyrighted by the Free Software Foundation, write to the Free Software Foundation; we sometimes make exceptions for this. Our decision will be guided by the two goals of preserving the free status of all derivatives of our free software and of promoting the sharing and reuse of software generally. 12. NO WARRANTY BECAUSE THE PROGRAM IS LICENSED FREE OF CHARGE, THERE IS NO WARRANTY FOR THE PROGRAM, TO THE EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW. EXCEPT WHEN OTHERWISE STATED IN WRITING THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND/OR OTHER PARTIES PROVIDE THE PROGRAM AS IS WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EITHER EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. THE ENTIRE RISK AS TO THE QUALITY AND PERFORMANCE OF THE PROGRAM IS WITH YOU. SHOULD THE PROGRAM PROVE DEFECTIVE, YOU ASSUME THE COST OF ALL NECESSARY SERVICING, REPAIR OR CORRECTION.
13. IN NO EVENT UNLESS REQUIRED BY APPLICABLE LAW OR AGREED TO IN WRITING WILL ANY COPYRIGHT HOLDER, OR ANY OTHER PARTY WHO MAY MODIFY AND/OR REDISTRIBUTE THE PROGRAM AS PERMITTED ABOVE, BE LIABLE TO YOU FOR DAMAGES, INCLUDING ANY GENERAL, SPECIAL, INCIDENTAL OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES ARISING OUT OF THE USE OR INABILITY TO USE THE PROGRAM (INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO LOSS OF DATA OR DATA BEING RENDERED INACCURATE OR LOSSES SUSTAINED BY YOU OR THIRD PARTIES OR A FAILURE OF THE PROGRAM TO OPERATE WITH ANY OTHER PROGRAMS), EVEN IF SUCH HOLDER OR OTHER PARTY HAS BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES. END OF TERMS AND CONDITIONS
252
Appendix A. The GNU General Public License How to Apply These Terms to Your New Programs If you develop a new program, and you want it to be of the greatest possible use to the public, the best way to achieve this is to make it free software which everyone can redistribute and change under these terms. To do so, attach the following notices to the program. It is safest to attach them to the start of each source le to most effectively convey the exclusion of warranty; and each le should have at least the copyright line and a pointer to where the full notice is found.
<one line to give the programs name and a brief idea of what it does.> Copyright (C) <year> <name of author>
This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version. This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details. You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307 USA
Also add information on how to contact you by electronic and paper mail. If the program is interactive, make it output a short notice like this when it starts in an interactive mode:
Gnomovision version 69, Copyright (C) year name of author Gnomovision comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY; for details type show w. This is free software, and you are welcome to redistribute it under certain conditions; type show c for details.
The hypothetical commands show w and show c should show the appropriate parts of the General Public License. Of course, the commands you use may be called
253
Appendix A. The GNU General Public License something other than show w and show c; they could even be mouse-clicks or menu items--whatever suits your program. You should also get your employer (if you work as a programmer) or your school, if any, to sign a copyright disclaimer for the program, if necessary. Here is a sample; alter the names:
Yoyodyne, Inc., hereby disclaims all copyright interest in the program Gnomovision (which makes passes at compilers) written by James Hacker.
<signature of Ty Coon>, 1 April 1989 Ty Coon, President of Vice
This General Public License does not permit incorporating your program into proprietary programs. If your program is a subroutine library, you may consider it more useful to permit linking proprietary applications with the library. If this is what you want to do, use the GNU Library General Public License instead of this License.
254
Index
Symbols
3-D hardware, 75 802.11, 67
C
cat, 125 cd, 123 CD-ROM, 117 checksum, 187 chmod, 50, 113 chown, 111 CIFS, 70 compression, 189
A
accounts (see users) disabling, 148 Apache, 1, 49 AppleTalk, 49 apropos, 8
D
daemons, 133, 137, 181 darkstar, 101 Debian Linux, 215 decompression, 189 default gateway, 64 default route, 64 devices mounting, 117 DHCP, 57, 61 client, 62 directories, 122 changing, 123 copying, 128 creating, 127 current, 124 moving, 129 removing, 129 DNS, 64, 159, 186 diagnostics, 160
B
bash, 45, 101, 106, 114 BIND, 1 boot disk, 33 booting, 89 ZipSlack, 227 BSD, 13, 46 init, 49 license, 4 bzip2, 190
255
Domain Name Service (see DNS) DOS, 41, 89, 225 Dual booting, 94
E
echo, 126 editor (see Emacs or vi) elvis, 195 emacs, 2, 205 basic commands, 210 basic editing, 210 buffers, 207 modes, 208 quitting, 213 saving les,212 starting, 206 email, 165 composing, 167 email clients elm, 165, 167 mutt, 168 nail, 169 pine, 165 environment variables, 103, 107 explodepkg, 222
F
FAQs, 10
fdisk, 22 le systems,28, 41, 111 journalling, 153 layout, 41 network, 70 SMB, 70 les archiving, 192 changing ownership, 111 compressing, 189 copying, 128 displaying, 126 downloading, 173 editing, 205 listing, 121 moving, 129 ownership, 111 permission, 112 removing, 129 timestamps, 127 nd,45 rewall,183 oppy disk, 91, 118 oppy disks copying, 21 font, 38, 50 free software, 3 Free Software Foundation, 2, 3 FTP, 70 clients, 174 commands, 175 FTP clients NcFTP, 176
256
G
gcc, 2 GIMP, 83 GNOME, 15, 83 GNU, 2, 3, 189 GNU Emacs, 205 GNU tape archiver (see tar) GNU/Linux, 2 GPL, 1, 4 group, 111 groups adding, 152 initial, 144 GRUB, 89 gzip, 189
idle process, 142 ifcong,61 inetd, 181 init, 47, 48, 86, 154 init scripts, 181 input redirection, 105 installation, 15 boot disk, 20 CD-ROM, 19, 29 oppy, 19 low memory, 17 NFS, 17, 20, 29 PLIP,SLIP,PPP, 20 root disk, 21 supplemental disk, 21 system requirements, 17 installation methods, 30 installpkg, 218, 222 IP address, 61, 159 static, 63 IP forwarding, 185 iptables, 183 ISA, 59
H
hard disk, 22 hardware requirements, 17 home directory, 152 HOWTOs, 10 httpd (see Apache)
I
IBM, 70 ICMP, 157 IDE, 22
J
jobs, 134 journalling le system,153
257
K
K Desktop Environment (KDE), 83 KDE, 15 kernel, 1, 50 2.4.x compiling, 52 2.6.x compiling, 54 compiling, 51 frame buffer, 90 modules, 54, 55 kernel module, 58 loading, 55 removing, 55 kernel modules, 47, 67 keyboard, 26 keymap, 26 kill, 139
ls, 121
M
MacOS, 41, 83 mail spool le,152 mail folders, 165 makepkg, 222 man pages, 7 manuals (see man pages) Master Boot Record (MBR), 94 MD5 checksum, 187 Meta key, 210 Microsoft, 70 modem, 34 modems, 59 WinModems, 59 mount, 117 mouse, 36, 50, 77 multitasking, 136 multiuser, 111
L
LILO, 38, 89 conguration,90 links, 111, 116, 131 Linux kernel, 2 Linux Loader (see LILO) LISP, 2 Loadlin, 89, 93 log in remote, 162, 164 logging in, 101 login name, 144
N
NetBEUI, 70 NetBIOS, 70 netcong,39, 57, ?? network, 157 diagnostics, 158 route, 158
258
Network Address Translation (NAT), 184 network card, 58 network le systems,70 windows, 70 News, 49 NFS, 17, 29, 73 client conguration,73 mounts, 111, 119
O
open source, 3 Open Source Initiative, 4 output redirection, 105
P
package management, 215 packages installing, 217, 218 making, 222 removing, 217, 219 upgrading, 218, 220 packet ltering,183 pagers, 124 less, 125 more, 124 most, 125 paging, 138 partitioning, 22 passwords, 102 changing, 148
choosing, 146 patches, 187 PATH, 103 PCI, 59 PCMCIA, 47, 60 ping, 157 pipes, 105 pkgtool, 217 PPP, 65 setup, 66 process, 133 suspend, 134 terminating, 139 programs installing, 215 listing, 135 running in background, 133 running in foreground, 134 suspending, 134 pwd, 124
R
RAM, 80 reboot, 153, 183 Red Hat Linux, 215 Red Hat Package Manager, 221 converting, 221 remote login, 162 removepkg, 219 resolver, 64 reverse DNS, 186
259
root, 102, 115, 143 root directory, 41 route, 158 RPM (see Red Hat Package Manager) runlevel, 47, 48, 86 runlevels, 183
S
Samba, 70 conguration,71 SCP, 70 screen, 110 SCSI, 22 Secure Shell (SSH), 164, 182 security, 12, 181 patches, 187 sendmail, 1 serial ports, 47 services disabling, 181 setup, 25 tagles,223 shell, 101 shells, 151 shutdown, 153 Silicon Graphics, 83 SlackBuild, 223 Slackware Linux minimum requirements, 17 ofcial CDs,15
software series, 17 store, 16 SLIP, 65 slocate, 46 SLS Linux, 2 SMB, 70 Solaris, 73 static IP, 57 su, 102 Sun Microsystems, 73, 83 superuser, 102 support email, 11 mailing lists, 11, 186 patches, 187 usenet, 14 swap partition, 23, 27 symbolic link, 116 system administration, 143 system load, 141 system resources, 138 System V, 46, 48 init compatibility, 49
T
tab completion, 108 Tagles,223 Tags, 223 talk, 177 tar, 191 TCP wrappers, 185
260
TCP/IP, 61, 70 telinit, 154, 183 telnet, 162 terminal, 82 timezone, 35 Torvalds, Linus, 1 touch, 127 twm, 82
saving les,201 starting, 195 vim, 195 virtual terminals, 109 X Window System, 109 Volkdering, Patrick, 2
W U
umask, 114 upgradepkg, 220 URL, 173 USB, 59 Usenet, 14 user, 111 users, 102 adding, 143 messaging, 177 online chat, 177 passwords, 146 querying, 161 removing, 147 web browsers, 170 links, 172 lynx, 170 text mode, 170 wget, 173 web server, 184 WEP, 68 whatis, 8 whereis, 45 which, 45 wildcard, 104 window manager, 40, 75, 84 Windows, 3, 41, 83, 94, 225 Windows 2000, 72 Windows NT, 72, 98 Windows XP, 72 WinModems, 59 wireless networking hardware, 67 wireless networking, 67 conguration,68
V
vi, 2, 195 conguration,202 modes, 197 opening les,200 quitting, 202
261
X
X Window System, 40, 48, 75, 133 conguration,75 login manager, 85 monitor conguration,79 remote clients, 162 resolution, 80 server, 75 starting, 81 virtual terminals, 109 xdm, 85 XEmacs, 205 Xorg, 75 xterm, 82
Z
zip, 193, 225, 227 ZipSlack, 225 zombie process, 138, 142
262

Slackware Linux

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Slackware Linux

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Slackware Linux Essentials

Slackware Linux Essentials

Slackware Linux Essentials, Second Edition

Changes from the First Edition

Organization of this Book

Conventions used in this book

An Introduction to Slackware Linux

Chapter 1 An Introduction to Slackware Linux

1.2 What is Slackware?

1.3 Open Source and Free Software

Chapter 1 An Introduction to Slackware Linux

2.1 System Help

HOWTOs and mini-HOWTOs

2.2 Online Help

The Ofcial Website and Help Forums

Chapter 2 Help To subscribe to a mailing list, email:

Non-Ofcial Websites and Help Forums

Search through decades of Usenet posts for your pearls of wisdom.

Chapter 2 Help alt.os.linux.slackware FAQ8 Another FAQ

3.1 Getting Slackware

Via the Internet

The primary FTP location for Slackware Linux is:

3.2 System Requirements

The Software Series

KDEI L N T TCL X XAP Y

Making the Disks

Chapter 3 Installation Now we create the partitions with the n command:

3.4 The setup Program

Slackware Linux Setup (version 9.1.0)

Slackware Setup Help Slackware Linux Help ____________________

Do you wish to install this as your swap partition?

SOURCE MEDIA SELECTION

PACKAGE SERIES SELECTION

SELECT PROMPTING MODE

Network The network conguration subsection is actually more information.

See Section 5.1 for

4.1 System Overview

File System Layout

Chapter 4 System Conguration

Chapter 4 System Conguration

% find / -name xinitrc /var/X11R6/lib/xinit/xinitrc

This is the actual system initialization script.

Congures your serial ports by running the appropriate setserial commands.

Chapter 4 System Conguration

Halt the system (runlevel 0). By default, this is symlinked to

Reboot the system (runlevel 6).

Startup in single user mode (runlevel 1).

and starts up basic network services.

Starts up AppleTalk services.

Starts up the news server.

Loads the custom screen font for the console.

4.2 Selecting a Kernel

Directory on the Slackware CD-ROM

Compiling a Kernel from Source

Figure 4-1. Kernel Conguration Menu

make dep # make clean

make bzImage V=1

Chapter 4 System Conguration

Using Kernel Modules

lsmod Module parport_pc parport

Size 7220 7844

Chapter 4 System Conguration

Static-IP DHCP Loopback

It then offered to probe for a network card to congure.

)v.))

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